Through anothers eyes
by RocknRollagirl
Summary: They say that when you leave a place, you always leave a part of yourself behind. The Winchesters have been leaving places all their lifes. A series of snapshots throughout the Winchester s journey, told by people they ve met along the way. Some angst, some fluff, some whump and a lot of brothers being brothers.
1. Highway heroes

**Hey there:)**

 **I always love stories that show our favourite brothers from an outsider´s perspective and so I figured I could start writing my own. This is going to be a collection of snapshots from the brothers´life, told by some of the people they have met along the way, ranging from fluffy to angsty, with a dash of h/c and brother feels thrown in for good measure.**

 **A big Thank You goes to my beta soncnica, who braved the adventurous interpretation of grammatical rules and the odd plot holes that sneak into my writing when I´m not looking. To say it with Dean´s words: You´re awesome. All remaining mistakes are mine**

 **Disclaimer:I own nothing but a laptop and a few shiny DVD´s**

 **Warning: some swearing that is overheard by a minor, apart from that only a serious case of fluff**

 **Could be sat in any season the boys weren´t at odds with each other.**

"If you just turned off the Highway when I told you-"

"How could I have possibly known there would be an accident?!"

"I don´t know, you could have turned on the radio, but oh no, you´re Mister I-need-all-my-concentration-on-the-road!"

"Well, I didn´t hear you volunteer to drive-"

Oh well.

It was like this ever since the cars in front of them had slowed down, turning their swift drive into a crawl before they eventually stopped moving altogether.

That had been two hours ago.

Matt loved his parents, much more than his 10-year-old self would ever admit out loud, but currently he wished himself as far away from them as possible. He shifted uncomfortably in the backseat of the family van that Dad bought three months ago, right after Mom told him with a smile he never saw on her before that he´d have a little sister come October. The interior of the car was heated from the sun and he could feel the sweat dripping down from his hair into the collar of his shirt.

So far, he spent as little thought as possible on what the addition to their family would mean for him. The new car was nice, sure, and his Dad had allowed him to help paint the room for the baby, but, apart from that, thinking about his will-be little sister made him feel slightly …apprehensive.

He tried to tune out the voices of his parents still discussing who was to blame for the fact that they haven´t reached their cottage at the coast yet. The next holiday there would be four of them. He dismissed the thought quickly and focused on the cars beside him instead. Next to them was a beat-down pickup truck. The man driving was wearing a cowboy hat and, judging by the movements of his mouth, either having a heated discussion with himself or singing along to the radio full heartedly. Matt pressed his ear to the glass of the window, relishing in the small patch of coldness before his skin warmed it up and tried to make out words, but the conversation in the front seat was too loud. On the other side was a tiny car in which a young man and a woman sat. Or, to be more accurate, the woman sat on the man´s lap and they were –Ugghh!

Matt shuddered and turned away hastily, the movement making new drops of sweat break out on his brow. "Mom, can I get some ice cream from the cooler?"

She stopped mid-sentence and turned around. "Sorry, sweetie, I´d rather not leave the car. We might not be moving right now, but this is still a highway." She ruffled his hair. "Don´t worry, we´ll be out of here before you know it".

She smiled at him and he didn´t have the heart to tell hear that they went past before-you-know-it over an hour ago. He suppressed a sigh and leaned back. For the next five minutes he busied himself with trying to touch as little of the heated fabric of the seats as possible without actually standing up, before he finally gave up on getting cooler. His parents were currently busy discussing the furniture for the baby´s room and for a small, evil second he thought that they wouldn´t even notice if he melted right here in the backseat.

 _I could always get the ice cream myself_.

A small part of him told him he was being childish, but the rest of his brain was absolutely deep-fried and what harm would it really do? He´d be back before they knew it.

Keeping his eyes on the road in front of him and smiling his most innocent smile his hand found the door handle. He held his breath and pulled it, waiting for his parents to hear the tell-tale click and turn around, but they just kept right on talking without sparing him a glance.

 _I knew it_.

Shaking of the tiny stab of disappointment he felt, he nudged the door open as fast as he dared. He inched forward, begging silently that the squeaking of the seats wouldn´t give him away. He put his right foot down on the concrete, relishing in the soft breeze he felt around his ankles. A last glance to his parents and then he was standing on the highway. He squeezed his eyes shut, his heart hammering so loud he was sure it could be heard miles around, but everything remained silent. Now he could hear the throb of the bass emanating from the truck besides him and even a raspy voice singing along. It was cooler outside, if only barely.

Only after the song ended he dared to open his eyes and look around. Mom and Dad were still busy with their conversation and the people in the cars surrounding theirs didn´t seem at all interested in the kid that had just successfully sneaked away from under his parents eyes. He carefully pushed on the door, not daring to close it fully because of the noise it would make and made his way to the trunk. Only when he stood behind the car it occurred to him that actually opening the trunk to get to the cooler containing the ice cream would make a sound not even his parents could ignore.

Matt sighed disappointed. He used all his ninja sneaking skills for nothing? Unwilling to get back in the car just yet he turned around and let his eyes wander over the long line of cars behind them. They were standing on the top of a hill and he could follow the course of the highway for what felt like three miles until it made a turn to the right and disappeared into the woods they had been driving through before. It must have been more than 1000 cars that he could see and who knew how far the end of the traffic jam was behind the turn? He tried counting the cars just within his line of vision and then he saw the people.

Apparently, not everybody shared his mother´s fear of leaving vehicles stranded on highways because he could see plenty of other people on the road. Just twenty meters behind them a couple was leaning against the hood of their car, enjoying the sun. A man walked his dog through the lanes and about thirty cars down two kids were passing a ball between them. _Maybe they´ll let me play with them…_

His parents were still busy talking animatedly _. Good_. He knew from experience this kind of conversation could keep them occupied for hours on end. And really, it wasn´t even like he would go thaaat far. After a quick look back that confirmed nothing had changed inside their car Matt took off running.

It felt great to be moving again after hours of being scooped up in the back seat and he sped past the cars, enjoying the blur of colors and the wind running through his hair. He flew past the sunbathing couple and only caught a glimpse of the man with the dog. He could already hear the kids with the ball laugh when another snippet of conversation caught his attention.

"I swear to God, Sam, I let you drive for two damn hours and the first thing you do is getting us trapped in traffic?!"

"If you´d have let me turn on the radio I would´ve known about the accident that blocked the road, but you turned it off, because, I quote: That pansy-ass pop racket makes it impossible to dream of what Belinda did to me last night!"

"Well, Sammy, I don´t expect you to understand that because you haven´t been there to see how she-"

"Damn it, Dean, I really don´t need more nightmare material!"

Matt came to a stop besides an old Volkswagen and tried to figure out where the voices were coming from. Between having heard at least three terms his mother would immediately send him to his room for and having no idea what exactly this Belinda person had done to one of the speakers -who apparently went by the name Dean-that was so horrible that 'Sammy' didn´t want to think about, he had to admit he was curious enough to miss a few minutes of playing ball. He rounded the Volkswagen and followed the sound of Dean´svoice replying with a snort. "Don´t get your panties in a twist, princess."

 _Weird. I used to think Sammy was a name for a boy_.

A squeaking sound could be heard, followed by the slamming of a door and then he could see someone. A huge man was standing beside a black car, his hands curled in fists at his side. It was the same car that stood on Dad´s shelf, the last one on the left. Dad didn´t let Matt play with his models very often but he made an effort to know them all. The one currently standing in front of him was a Chevrolet. _Inpre…Impan…Impala. A Chevy Impala_.

The sound of another door being slammed shut jerked him out of his thoughts just in time to see another man rounding the hood of the car, carrying two cans. He had short dark hair and was about as tall as his Dad. When he leaned next to the first man, offering him one of the cans, Matt noticed that he was still a considerable bit shorter than the first man. The latter took the can despite shaking his head.

"It´s three in the afternoon and I still need to drive, you know", he snapped without any real heat. The shorter one seemed unfazed, cracked his can open and lifted it in a salute. "But not in the next three hours. So, cheers"

The tall man seemed to consider that for a second before sighing and clacking their cans together. It was quiet for a few seconds as they drank and Matt wondered who of them was Dean and who was Sammy, who apparently was a man, after all. He found it funny that these two were arguing like his parents, just that his parents were still baking in the oven they called a car, while these men were doing the reasonable thing. Then again, from their conversation and the few times he´d seen his Mom or Dad drink, he concluded that the stuff in the cans was alcohol and how sensible could two people be, who drank in the middle of the day when they still had to drive? Maybe it´d be better if he just left them and tried to find the kids with the ball.

"Hey, remember ninety-two, that time we got stuck on the Highway halfway on our way to Bobby´s?" the shorter one suddenly asked. His companion chuckled. "You mean the time you were laid up with that broken leg that Casper of the week got you and were completely insufferable?" His voice became higher and slightly whiny _. "Dad, when is it gonna be over? Dad, I´m dying of thirst here. Dad, can we get ice cream?_ And then, shortly before I would have smothered you with your own jacket, the unthinkable happened and Dad actually got up and walked all the way to the next service station to get ice cream." Now they were both grinning.

"Or the time in Michigan were we´d been completely snowed in and had the craziest snowball fight with the construction guys from the van in the next lane?"

"Yeah, that was sweet. I don´t know if you remember, but when you were really little, like five or something, Dad allowed us to stretch our legs after hours off standing on Highway 61 and we went around the car together and when I turned back, you were gone." The shorter had spoken and he let his eyes wander over the road in front of him as if he was reliving the story he was telling.

"We searched everywhere, and you know where we found you?" His companion shook his head and the speaker´s grin widened as he continued. "An old lady who travelled with her granddaughter took you in and when Dad and I arrived, the girl was trying to braid your hair and the Grandma was feeding you cookies because "you looked so lonely and helpless".

"Yeah, right, now you´re making shit up."

"I swear on my tape collection, it´s all true! Okay, she wasn´t really braiding your hair, but she looked like she might start any minute. You never knew what we saved you from!"

"I know you think that little girls are all the incarnate of the devil, but I think it´s time you get over Missy Bender, don´t you?" Now the taller one was grinning again and didn´t stop despite the slap on the chest he received for his answer.

Matt tried to tell himself he wasn´t eavesdropping. He was just passing by and coincidentally hearing their conversation, right? He really should go on, he knew it, but these two were just so _interesting_. From what he heard, it nearly sounded like they were brothers, even though they were already adults. But he could from the way they behaved around each other that they were definitely friends and their stories sounded like fun, even though he didn´t understand half of what they were saying. Matt was still relatively new in his school because his family had moved to Westfield only half a year ago. There were a few kids he liked, of course, but there was no best friend, no one he could share jokes and memories with the way these guys apparently could with each other. And his family was great, sure, but soon enough they would have their hands full caring for the baby. He angrily blinked tears away. He wouldn´t cry, he would turn ten next month and he had his pride, after all.

Matt didn´t really know why he did it, maybe because it was already too late to find the other kids anyway, maybe to prove something to himself, but in the next moment he stepped away from the car he had hidden behind.

"A great car you have there."

The two men turned around to him, looking slightly alarmed at first. Then, a grin formed on the face of the shorter one. "Hey buddy. Always nice to meet someone who´s got taste."

"Uhhm, yeah" He smiled, trying to think of something intelligent and mature to reply and coming up empty. "I´m Matt" he said instead, a little surprised of himself. He knew that he shouldn´t talk to strangers and definitely not tell them his name, but something told him that these two wouldn´t hurt him. They were both smiling now, the one who spoke before stretching out his hand. "I´m Dean, this is my brother Sam."

Matt eyed the hand in confusion for a second before he understood. He approached them hesitantly, looking for any signs of danger, but all he saw were two friendly smiles and a grown up offering him his hand. That was new. He shook hands with Dean, then with Sam. "Pleased to meet you", he said, thinking how Mom would be proud of his manners. Then again, given the situation he was in, maybe she wouldn´t.

"Wait, you said you´re brothers?"

Dean leaned back on the car, nodding. "I know it´s hard to believe that we´re related, but yeahit´s true."

"But you are so… old!"

Only belatedly he realized that this last statement might be considered rude. Then again, Sam and Dean apparently took no mind. They looked at each other for a second before they bursted out laughing. His first instinct was to feel offended, but there was no condescension in their laughter. They just seemed to find what he said genuinely funny. Then again, maybe it was. All the siblings Matt knew were kids. Sure, his father had a brother, but they lived three hours apart from each other and would only meet three times a year for birthdays and Christmas and so it was easy to forget they were so closely related. Up until now, he never really considered that siblings remained siblings all their life.

The brothers, Sam and Dean, were still laughing and he found it hard to stay serious while Dean was bowed over, one hand on his knee and one on the car´s roof and Sam had his head thrown back, laughing harder than Matt had ever seen any other adult laugh. These two were definitely not normal, but he slowly came to the conclusion that that might actually be a good thing and started chuckling himself, the chuckle quickly turning into giggling giving way to laughter.

Dean eventually straightened, wiping his eyes. "Yeah, I guess from your perspective you could say that." he said to Matt, still grinning. Matt grinned right back, glad that his new friends didn´t take offense in what he said.

"Is Sam the big brother?" he asked; a question that made the smile on Sam´s face turn slightly smug while Dean looked positively horrified.

"That depends on how you define big", Dean replied, gesturing up and down the body of his brother. "He definitely is the biggest princess I know."

Now it was Dean´s turn to look smug and Sam rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "But when it comes to age and wisdom and charm and style, the big brother on duty is me" Dean pointed to himself.

"I´ll be a big brother too" Matt said before he could think about it. Dean nodded approvingly "That´s cool, man."

 _Maybe, if you have a brother like Sam_. Matt´s face fell again. "I don´t know. All my parents ever talk about is the baby. And I´m going to get a little sister" he added, disappointment coloring his words.

Dean frowned in sympathy. "Oh, dude, that´s tough." He jerked his head in Sam´s direction. "I would know." Sam hit his brother´s shoulder in exaggerated outrage and Matt had to chuckle against his will.

Then, Dean´s face became serious again and he stepped forward. "Let me tell you a secret, Matt." He beckoned him closer with a conspiratorially expression. Curious, Matt stepped towards him. Dean leaned down and whispered in his ear: "Little sisters ain´t so bad. And as for your parents…You´re already pretty big, but your sister isn´t. She needs their attention and protection and she´ll need yours too. Don´t you think it´s cool that your parents trust you with that?" He gave Matt a second to think about that.

"I ain´t saying being the big brother is easy, but you´ll love it." Dean looked him straight in the eyes, serious and insistent, from one big brother to the other. Then, he leaned in even closer. "I still do."

Matt let the words sink in. He looked at Sam who eyed their conversation with a little smile and a soft expression he found hard to place, then back at Dean who gave him a tiny wink before the bright grin returned to his face and the seriousness vanished.

"So, and because today is my generous day, I´d even allow someone who can actually appreciate beauty when he sees it to take a closer look."

Dean opened the driver´s door of the car with a slight bow and made an inviting gesture. Matt gaped at him. "You sure?"

"Ask me again and I might change my mind." Even though he suspected Dean was kidding, he raced towards him, ducked under his arm and climbed up in the driver´s seat.

"Wow!"

Matt didn´t really know much about cars, but this was not like the one his parents drove, or the parents of his friends. The steering wheel was huge, the leather seats made little noises when he moved and while he couldn´t really call the interior clean with the half open duffel bag in the backseat and the food wrapper and road maps in the foot well, everything looked… cared for. It smelled faintly of fries and the oil his Dad sometimes used to clean his car and something he couldn´t define, something earthy and fresh and warm. Matt laid his hands on the steering wheel and closed his eyes, imagining that all the cars blocking the road were gone and he was alone, flying along the highway.

"So, what do you think?"

Matt opened his eyes with a start only to look into Dean´s expectant face. "It´s amazing" Matt beamed and Dean grinned and raised his hand. "I knew you were an expert. Come on, up top!"

"Uhhm, Matt?" Sam had stayed outside, but now his head appeared in the open window. "Did you tell your parents that you would go on a little trip?"

 _My parents!_ A frantic glance on his watch revealed that he had already been gone for over half an hour. _They´ll kill me!_ Matt only managed to shake his head, his mind still frozen with shock.

"Does your mother wear a blue skirt and a white shirt?" Sam continued asking and Matt forced himself to climb out of the car, using Sam´s tall frame to hide behind while at the same time being able to look ahead. And really, there were Mom and Dad, walking frantically down the road, crossing the lanes and shouting his name. He tried to make himself even smaller behind Sam. "They`ll be sooo mad at me."

He hated how his voice shook, making him sound like a whiny little kid, but Sam didn´t seem to notice. He dropped one of his large hands on his head and his tone was calm and reassuring. "Don´t worry, kiddo, I´m sure we can explain everything to them."

"Sam´s right, Matt." He looked up to see that Dean also exited the Chevy and stood on his other side now.

That´s when Mom spotted them. She froze in place for a second and then she started jogging towards them, Dad on her heels.

Matt expected fury in her eyes, but there was nothing but concern when she reached them and dropped down on one knee in front of him. "Hey, Mattie, are you okay?" She cupped his face with her right hand and scanned his body with experienced efficiency.

Matt was far too relieved to feel embarrassed by this open display of affection and hurried to say: "Mom, I´m so sorry I took off without saying something, I really shouldn´t have and I didn´t want to make you worry-" Now he was really crying, tears trailing down his cheeks and his voice hitching on a sob. But instead of scolding, Mom pulled him in a tight hug, rocking slowly back and forth. "Shh, it´s alright, sweetie, no harm done. "

"Wow, now that´s not something you see every day!" Matt lifted his wet eyes from Mom´s shoulders to see that Dad, who had arrived slightly out of breath, was staring at the brothers car with admiration.

Matt sniffed and cleared his throat. "It looks just like yours, Dad."

"That it does. You okay there, Mattie?" He nodded, feeling the last tears drying as Dad ruffled his hair.

"Dad collects models from old cars and he has one just like yours" Matt explained to Sam and Dean, who had taken a step back when his parents arrived.

"And you are?" Mom tightened the grip around his shoulders slightly as she addressed the brothers.

"These are Sam and Dean and they are brothers and they let me sit in their car", Matt hastily explained before his mother could get the wrong idea. "They are really nice!"

"Well, if that´s so" Dad grinned and stepped towards them. " I´m Thomas Foster and this is my wife Louise" He shook hands with his new friends. "Thank you for keeping an eye on Mattie, he can be quite a handful."

Matt was about to protest when Dean answered. "Oh, don´t worry, I have experience in that regard. Plus", he added with a wink in his direction. "Talking to Matt was the first proper conversation I had all day."

Dad chuckled and Sam took the jibe with the same amused eye roll that he seemed to have reserved especially for Dean. When Dad opened his mouth again, eyes still on the Chevy, his voice sounded a little like Matt´s when he asked if he could get just one more peppermint drop.

"You wouldn´t mind if I…?"

Dean´s face lit up and the two of them immediately launched into a discussion about old cars in general and Dean´s Chevy in particular.

"Well, knowing my husband, this might take a while" Mom stood up with a sigh, but she was smiling. "Knowing Dean, I´m certain it will." Sam agreed in a similar tone of voice. "If you want something to drink in the meantime, I´m afraid I can only offer wat-" he began, but Mom waved him off. "That´s kind of you, Sam, was it?" He barely had time to nod before she continued: "But I think it might be just the right time for ice cream. What do you say, Mattie?"

After everything that had happened in the last hour Matt completely forgot why he left the car in the first place, but, as far as he was concerned, ice cream was always a brilliant idea. "Yeah, that´d be cool! Can we get Sam and Dean something too?" He asked, excited by the idea to give something back to his new friends. Mom laughed. "Of course, if they like chocolate ice cream, their welcome to have some." The last part of the sentence was directed at Sam, who looked a little thrown off guard by the offer.

"Uhm, well, that´s very nice, Mrs. Foster, but you don´t have to-".

"Don´t you like chocolate ice cream?!" Matt stared at him with a mixture of confusion and disappointment. He´d seen a lot strange things this afternoon, but who in their right mind doesn´t like chocolate?

Sam shook his head with a slight grin. "Well yes, we do, Dean would eat little else if you let him, but-" "Well, that´s settled, then." Mom interrupted, reaching up in an attempt to pat Sam´s shoulder reassuringly and settling on his upper arm instead. "Don´t worry, we have more than enough for all of us." Turning to Matt, she added: "I´ll go and get some, you want to come with me or stay?"

"Stay" he quickly responded, cheeks turning red. Mom nodded, called out to Dad, received an absentminded "Okay, Darling" and turned around to walk back to their car.

"She keeps forgetting I´m not a baby anymore." he muttered, still slightly embarrassed. Sam gave him a sympathizing smile. "I know the feeling. Sometimes I´m surprised Dean doesn´t try to tie my shoe laces for me." Despite his words, he sounded more amused than annoyed.

Suddenly, Matt had an idea.

"Sam-", he began hesitantly, unsure how to phrase his question. This was important, so he had to get it right. "You are the little brother,right?"

The tall man nodded, looking curious.

"Well, I bet you have lots of experience with it by now and so I thought that maybe you could tell me…" he trailed of, self-conscious all of a sudden, because it seemed so silly when he said it out loud. However, it seemed that Sam already knew where he was going. "You want to know from a younger brother how being a good big brother works?"

Matt nodded, looking at his feet. "You don´t have to answer if you think it´s a stupid question" he mumbled, fiddling with the hem of his shirt.

"No, it´s definitely not stupid! It´s a good question, Matt." The vehemence of Sam´s disagreement made him look up again to where the younger Winchester was leaning against the side of the car, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Let me think about this for a minute."

Matt let his hands fall to his side. Something about how Sam took him completely serious made him feel taller and he allowed himself to lean back against the car as well, mirroring his friend´s pose.

Sam thought about his question for the longest time, and Matt was just about the repeat what he´d asked when the younger Winchester spoke up.

"Well, I could tell you a lot of things, I guess. Uhhm. I could tell you to play with your sister. To teach her how to button her jacket, to take her hand when you cross the street, to help her with her homework." His voice was distant, his gaze directed to the open valley stretching out in front of them. Matt tried to picture a little Dean holding a small Sam´s hand, but his imagination was already overtaxed with thinking of a Sam that was smaller than his brother, because, honestly.

"I could say that sometimes you should leave her alone when she asks you to and sometimes you should stay, whatever she says. You should accept when she doesn´t like your music or your food and you should never, under no circumstances, ever, put nair in her shampoo."

He stared up at Sam disbelievingly. "He didn´t!" A grin tugged at the tall man´s lips, his hand pushing his hair away from his eyes as if to remind himself that it was all still there. "Yep. But don´t tell him I told you."

Matt raised his hand in a solemn promise and the younger Winchester continued: " Uuhm, I could say that you should be patient with her. She may not always immediately see you want the best for her, but she will understand eventually. You shouldn´t let her win a game just to please her. Teach her how it´s done instead. Watch out for her."

Sam´s voice had gradually become quieter, slowly trailing off on that last sentence. In the silence that stretched out between them Dean and Dad could be heard, still lost in animated conversation, but Matt tried to tune them out. He wanted to remember everything he heard, commit it to memory so thoroughly he could never forget it.

When he saw Mom nearing with the cooler from the trunk of their car, Sam suddenly cleared his throat and crouched down next to him. Eye to eye. "But all of that isn´t that important, really. The thing you need to know most about little sisters is, that, no matter what you do and what you don´t, no matter how far apart you are and no matter how tall or old they get, they will always look up to you. Always love you."

The words lingered between them and Matt felt how what he´d heard echoed through his head, filling up the spaces so far lost to the persistent worry about an uncertain future and the fear of somehow being not enough to live in it. In some way he could not express, he knew that what he just heard was something big, something essential. And he would never forget it, of that he was certain.

"Ummpf."

Matt didn´t know how to respond, and so he simply didn´t. Instead, he launched himself at the kneeling Winchester, wrapping his hands around his neck and nearly knocking him over in the process. "Thanks, Sam".

After a few seconds of fighting for his equilibrium, he could feel Sam relax, slowly bringing his hands up to rest on his back ever so carefully. As if he feared he would break him otherwise. Sometimes, adults really could be completely unreasonable.

Suddenly remembering what Dad used to do to cheer him up, he reached down with his right hand and poked Sam experimentally in the ribs. "Am I allowed to tickle my sister?" He asked innocently as the older man let out a surprised yelp.

"Only if you´re prepared to deal with the revenge!"

As soon as the meaning of the words sunk in, Matt tried to wiggle himself out of Sam´s grasp, pushing and pulling at the fabric of his shirt but it was useless. In seconds he dissolved into hysterical laughter, hands wrapped around himself in an ineffective attempt to protect himself and unable to draw enough breath to call for help.

"That´s not really playing fair, Sammy. Why don´t you try that with someone your size?"

At the sound of Dean´s voice, Sam froze and Matt simply collapsed against him, still panting for air and hoping his face didn´t look as red as he felt.

"Well, I would, but I don´t see anyone around here who would fit into that category." He could practically hear Sam smirking. When he looked up, he could see Dean flex his fingers playfully, grinning like a cat. "Big talk, little bro. Come on then, bring it on."

"Just remember, you asked for it." Sam rose slowly, mirroring his brother´s stance and obviously fighting to stay serious.

"Who wants ice cream?"

The Winchesters simultaneously startled, heads wiping around to Mum who had just returned, carrying a big blue cooler. While Sam let his hands drop quickly, looking somewhat like a child caught with the hand in the cookie jar, Dean was completely focused on the cooler. "Ice cream?"

The way his eyes grew huge at her words made Mom laugh. "Yes, while you and Thomas were busy under the hood of the car we decided that right now is the perfect time for ice cream. Sam assured me you like chocolate, is that right?"

Dean nodded enthusiastically.

"Dude, you might want to close your mouth before you start drooling." Sam clasped his brother on the shoulder as he passed him while Mom set down the cooler and started rummaging through it.

"You´re lucky our companions are so generous, don´t think I let you off the hook so easily next time" the older replied without missing a beat, giving Sam a playful shove that send the taller man stumbling.

"Jerk."

"To each his own, bitch."

Matt only heard the mumbled words because he stood directly behind them, eyes widening when he thought about how long he wouldn´t be allowed to watch tv if he ever said something like that aloud. Sam and Dean didn´t seem at all bothered, standing shoulder to shoulder beside the cooler, looking completely comfortable with each other. Strange people, these brothers, Matt thought to himself, but a cool kinda strange. _Well, who wants to be normal anyway?_

As he heard Mom handing out ice cream cones, Dad, who had been busy inspecting the Impala´s interior, suddenly appeared next to her, looking nearly as surprised and excited about the sweets as Dean. Laughter carried over to where he still stood a few feet apart from them. For a moment, Matt find himself marveling at what he would have missed had he simply stayed in the backseat. Then he joined his family and the weirdest grown-ups he´d ever met, figuring that maybe he doesn´t mind becoming a big brother all that much.

 **That´s it for now. I´ve got three more chapters done and plan to update regularly. Is there anything in particular that you want to see? Then leave a prompt in the comments. I can´t promise I can fill it, but I can promise to try. See ya around:)**


	2. Hitchhiker

**Hey guys:)**

 **As promised, I´m back with the next chapter.**

 **This could be set at any point in the show and my thanks goes once more to my wonderful beta soncnica:)**

 **Warnings for swearing and some blood, but nothing too major.**

 _Summary: The aftermath of a hunt leads to an unecpected encounter by the roadside._

Looking back on it later, Will doesn´t really know what possessed him to stop. It was late, after all, darkness already creeping over the horizon and he was the only one on the road. But hey, it wasn´t like he really believed in the stories.

His grandma used to tell them to him when he was little, to keep him and his friends out of the forest. "Whatever you do, William, dear, stay away from the woods at night." Then, she would lean over and whisper conspiratorially into his ear: "There are monsters in there, restless spirits". His mother always scolded her for telling him these stories but she would just wink and smile the knowing smile of grandmothers all over the world.

And even though he mostly stayed away from the woods as a kid, he told himself that that had little to do with her warnings. Back then, it had been decades since the disappearings, since the townspeople found the mutilated corpses on the edge of the woods and all that was left were the questions and the countless myths they inspired. It was probably just due to some sort of provincial paranoia that, up until this day, he could never completely shake the feeling of dread that settled in his bones whenever he drove down the narrow road through the woods, never mind that it was the fastest way to reach Newcastle.

Newcastle, the village he grew up in. The cursed village, as some called it with just a hint of wariness in their voices and God, why was it happening again?

Three weeks ago, a young boy had vanished. Went to play with his friends but never arrived there, he´d read in the papers. The police found no traces of the kid, absolutely nothing. Townsfolk´d been in terror since then, the old legends and fears returning with vengeance.

"They are all going crazy, you know?", his mother told him over the phone a few nights ago. "Set up a neighborhood watch, can you believe it, and suspect everyone and everything". Since his father had died, she lived alone in the big old house and even though she had sounded calm about the whole thing, he had promised her to come for a visit as soon as possible.

Will was only three miles out, the forest all around him swallowing the remaining daylight with ease, when he saw him.

It was a man.

A really tall man who stood on the side of the road, waving as soon as the car was within viewing distance. The closer he came, the more frantic the waving became and there was an urgency to it that he was unable to ignore. While his head was screaming at him to continue, to keep driving, his right foot found the brake nearly on its own accord.

He came to a stop beside the man, eyeing him through the closed window: even taller from up close. Shaggy brown hair that hung into his face. Seedy jacket that no person with other options would wear in Michigan in November. The stranger was smiling at him disarmingly. All in all, he looked pretty harmless.

One look at his watch revealed that it was quarter to eight. He´d told his mom he´d be there by eight. She´d start to worry around half past eight, but she wouldn´t result to more drastic measures until after ten. That would be more than two hours from now.

He made sure that the doors were properly locked before he lowered the window a notch.

"Can I help you?"

"Hey. Thanks for stopping." The man sounded slightly breathless. "Could you possibly give me a ride to Newcastle?"

"How did you even get here?" Will asked, mostly to avoid having to answer immediately. The man´s smile became slightly sheepish. "Uhhm, I was wandering around in the woods and got lost."

"Wandering around in these woods? Alone?" He couldn´t keep the doubt out of his voice.

A shrug. "I´m not from ´round here."

 _Like that´s an explanation_.

This was the kind of situation everyone warned you about, starting with the teachers in kinder garden with their Stranger Danger. It was how every second horror movie started. By picking up a hitchhiker.

"How am I supposed to know you´re not some sort of psycho killer?"

The man sighed and rubbed a hand down his face. "Look, mister, I really need to get to Newcastle. You can search me, lock me in your trunk, I really don´t care. Just, please!"

The hint of true desperation in the man´s voice was one he couldn´t believe one could fake. But still…

Feeling a little stupid, Will grabbed his pocket knife from the glove compartment before opening the door. It had been a gift from his father, one that he carried around more for the sentiment than its possible usefulness, but it wasn´t like the stranger knew that. He stepped out of the car and slowly rounded the hood, eyes never straying from his would-be passenger.

"Alright then. Put your hands on the roof."

 _That´s how they always said it in the movies_.

Might as well let the guy believe he knew what he was doing.

"Okay, no problem"

The stranger raised his hands in a placating gesture before slowly stepping forward and resting them on the roof of the car. Will approached him slowly, knife ready in his right hand, muscles tense. Only when he stood beside him did he realize that he had no idea what to do next. After all, he never searched a person before.

"I´m not going to hurt you, I promise."

If he didn´t feel like an idiot before, standing on an empty road beside a perfectly harmless looking guy and threatening him with a pocket knife while trying to play bad cop, he sure as hell did now. But at this point there was no use in backing down anymore.

"I´ll just take your word for that, then, never mind the murderer who creeps around in these woods."

A shadow flickered over the man´s face. "Yeah, I heard about that."

 _And he still decided to wander around here alone? What was this guy, suicidal?_

"Then I´m sure you understand why I have to do this."

He decided to cover his insecurity with speed and slipped his knife in his back pocket before stepping behind the man to quickly pat him down. It was when Will peeled back the jacket to check for possible inside pockets that he saw the blood.

"What the hell happened to you?!"

The man´s undershirt was torn on the left side, blood seeping sluggishly out of what looked like several deep cuts and soaking through the fabric.

"I fell." He shrugged, "Landed in a thorn bush."

He was breathing harder now and hissed when Will moved the jacket back.

"That must´ve been one hell of a thorn bush." Will aimed for challenging, but probably ended up somewhere in the near vicinity of hysterical. The man made no move to elaborate.

"Why didn´t you tell me you were hurt?! I´m going to call an ambulance!"

A hand on his arm stopped him from turning.

"No, I´m okay, really. I didn´t tell you because I´m good. I just need to get back to the village."

"While bleeding all over my car? Yeah sure, why not?!"

The guy had the nerve to crack a smile at that.

"You think this is funny?!"

Will was breathing too fast, pushing a hand through his short black hair for a lack of something better to do. He was completely at a loss of what to make of this.

The stranger had dropped his smile immediately, his tone now steady and calming. "Look, we´ll figure this out, okay? I´m Sam Harris." He slowly raised one of his hands from the hood and held it out.

Will was reacting on autopilot when he reached for it, all of his previous fears of this guy being dangerous momentarily forgotten. "William McCoy".

There was blood on his fingertips, this Sam fellow´s blood. _Blood from the wound that was still bleeding at this moment._ When their hands met, some of it ended up on Sam´s palm and his eyes were drawn to the little dark red smudges on unbroken skin.

"Hey, William, you okay?"

Under normal circumstances he might´ve bristled at the casual use of his first name, but as it was, he had a hard time taking his eyes away from the crimson spots on their hands. Was he? Okay?

"Yeah, I´m good. I´m perfect. Never better."

"Okay, good. Do you have a first aid kit in your car?"

That was a question he could answer. "I do. An old one. Never used it before, I wouldn´t know how."

"That´s fine" Sam slowly stepped away from the car and was now facing him, shoulder slightly hunched, palms up. As if he was trying to calm a startled animal. Will took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. "I can get it for you."

He abruptly turned around and hurried to the trunk of his car. He needed two tries to get the key into the trunk´s lock and by the time he managed to dig the ancient first aid kit out, Sam was standing next to him.

"Perfect, that will do. Thank you". Sam gently took the kit from him and placed a hand on his shoulder ever so slightly. "Why don´t you sit down for a moment while I do this?"

By the time Will realized that he did not actually expect an answer to that question he was already standing beside the open passenger door, Sam´s hand on his shoulder nudging him down to the seat. Then Sam turned away from him and gingerly sat down on the ground before starting to rummage through the kit. If he was being honest with himself, he had no idea what was in there. A part of him was pissed at himself for being so completely useless at this. He was no police man. He was no paramedic. He was a damn lawyer and a good one. But right now that didn´t help him one bit.

It seemed that Sam had found something. He pulled a white cloth out of the kit and began to carefully pull the left arm out of his shirt. He had to stop several times to take a breath before his arm was finally free. Will had been so close to standing up and offering his help more than once, but Sam seemed to know what he was doing and he was clueless, so he always dropped back into the seat.

Sam gingerly lifted up his shirt and Will had to force himself to look away from the dark red liquid that was still running down the guy´s side, slowly dripping onto the grass.

 _This is too much, he´s losing too much, should have called an ambulance, should have-_

A sharp hiss jerked his thoughts away from a nearing panic attack and then Sam called out, voice strained.

"Uhm, William, could you maybe give me a hand here?"

His breathing picked up again, heart hammering in his chest. _Breathe in, breathe out. He needs help, so get your act together, dammit_!

"Yeah, of course"

Sounding much more confident than he felt, he stood up and went over to where Sam was sitting in the grass. Upon coming closer, Will could see that he had used the white cloth as some sort of improvised compress and was now pressing it to the largest of the wounds. When he stood beside him, Sam looked up.

"Great, thanks. Could you keep pressure on this for a second? I need to wrap it and I can´t do that with only one hand."

Will slowly sank to his knees in front of Sam, the part of his brain not busy freaking out taking notice of the fact that they were nearly eye to eye now. He was about as far away from a medical professional as you could get, but even he could see that Sam was far too pale for a healthy person. The hand not pressing the gauze to his side was planted into the grass to keep him upright and he was visibly leaning on it. He needed help and soon and that was what made Will reach out to exchange his hand with Sam´s.

"Wait. Put the gloves on first." Sam jerked his chin into the direction of the kit where a pair of old Latex gloves had slowly turned yellow since the last time someone had opened it.

"You aren´t wearing any." His mouth was faster than his brain.

"It´s my blood, so that doesn´t really matter." Sam gave him a half-smile.

"Are you some kind of doctor?"

Will reached for the gloves and slipped them on, putting his hand hesitantly over Sam´s, not quite sure how the exchange would work. As soon as his fingers lay over Sam´s, the taller man slowly slid his own away until he had worked it free. Now Will kneeled next to a guy he had met fifteen minutes ago and pressed a cloth to his side with all the force he could muster to keep his blood were it belonged. _Not exactly how I imagined my evening going_.

"No, not really."

Sam closed his eyes for a second as if to steel himself for what was to come, then reached for two gauze rolls. "I guess you could say I am some sort of volunteer paramedic."

He tried to tear off the plastic that covered the first roll but his hands were shaking too much. Will had to watch helplessly as it slipped out of his hands once, twice. Eventually, Sam put the edge of the plastic between his teeth and ripped the cover down with his free hand. He began to calmly wrap the gauze around his torso. Will watched as his companion covered the large white cloth with gauze until he could take his hands away. Sam reached for the second roll and placed it where Will´s hand had just been, wrapping it in with a little more pressure than he used before.

"How many times have you done this?" Will couldn´t quite keep the awe out of his voice.

"Couple times. I lost count, to be honest." Sam gave him a smile that was reassuring despite its shakiness. "But this time I couldn´t have done it without you, so, thank you." His smile got wider and Will found the corners of his mouth quirking upwards in response.

"Yes, if my law career blows up in my face I could always think of working as a first-class compress-holder" He took a deep breath before he pushed himself to his feet..

Will offered Sam his hand and the guy took it with a grateful smile. As soon as he was upright, however, all the color left in his cheeks faded away and his hands shot out searching for something to hold onto. Will quickly wrapped his fingers around his upper arms.

"Hey, Sam, you alright?"

The tall man had closed his eyes, panting through an open mouth, face screwed up as if he needed all his concentration to remain standing.

"Yeah, yeah…I´m…good" he wheezed out. Before Will could respond to what must have been the most obvious lie of the decade he continued between gulps for air: "You said…you´re a ….lawyer?"

His breathing slowly became more even until he opened his eyes, looking at Will as if nothing mentionable had just happened. As soon as he was sure Sam could stay on his feet unaided, Will let his hands fall to his sides, but he stayed behind him while the taller man squared his shoulders and made the few steps to the passenger side of the car. Will wondered where he took the energy from.

"Yes, I am. Over in Georgetown. Why do you ask?"

Sam had lowered himself gingerly into the seat, head tipped back to lean on the headrest. Now that he was sitting down, tension drained out of his posture with every second that went by, exhaustion taking the place of the resolve that had driven him before. For a moment, Will found himself wondering with vague horror what would have happened to Sam if he hadn´t stopped.

"I studied law once. I wanted to be a lawyer too."

Will bent down to pick up the first aid kit, swearing to himself that he would know its contents and their respective use by heart before he´d leave Newcastle again and put it back in the trunk. When he got into the car beside Sam, the man was struggling to fasten his seat belt since he couldn´t use his left hand without aggravating his injury. He reached over and buckled him in with one swift motion, feeling the slightest bit bemused at Sam´s startled expression.

"I can´t afford waiting here all night and have my mother worrying about me, so don´t sweat it" he shrugged and Sam relaxed back into his seat with a grateful smile.

"Why didn´t you become a lawyer?" Will turned the key in the ignition, and, turned up the heat after he noticed his passenger´s slight shivering. "And what possessed you to go out there without bringing a proper jacket?"

"It turned out it didn´t work for me" Sam answered after thinking for a minute, ignoring his second question. Suddenly, he straightened with a start. "Oh damn it, how could I forget that?! Will, I really hope not to overstretch my welcome, but could I use your phone for a second?"

Will waved his concerns away and pointed at the glove compartment.

Sam fumbled through it until he found the phone and activated the screen. He typed a number he apparently knew by heart and held the device to his ear. Will tried to concentrate on the road but it was silent in the car and he couldn´t help but hear that the call was picked up after only one ring.

"Who´s that?" The voice sounded gruff and suspicious and a little hostile, but Sam leaned back in his seat with a sigh as soon as he heard it.

"Hey Dean, it´s me."

The line was silent for a few seconds before the voice on the other side, apparently belonging to someone named Dean, could be heard again.

"Sammy?" Still gruff, but mistrust and coldness were replaced by relief. "Are you okay?"

Will didn´t need to turn his head to know that the man beside him was smiling while he answered. "Yeah Dean, I´m fine. It´s done." His voice lost its lightness." You were right. It was too late for him."

The line was silent. Sam cleared his throat." I´ve caught a ride back to the motel and meet you there in 10." Then he moved the phone a few inches away from his ear.

Before Will could ask what exactly "was done" and for whom it was "too late", violent yelling and cursing filled the interior of the car. Between the swear words, Will could make out phrases like "Don´t you dare do that ever again!" "What were you thinking just disappearing like that and don´t give me the ´It wasn´t my fault!", "You´ll wish it finished you off when you get back here!" and more mysterious threats that made him wish to never piss the man on the other end of the line off.

After throwing an apologetic glance in his direction, Sam took it all with a grin, never trying to interrupt or defend himself. After a while, when it seemed that Dean had reached the limits of his collection of colorful expletives, he simply ended the call. The silence in the car was deafening in the first couple seconds. Before Will had collected his thoughts, Sam suddenly asked: "Do you have any siblings?"

"No, I don´t"

"Be glad" Sam laughed.

"Your brother?" Will jerked his chin in the direction of the phone Sam still held in his hand.

"Yeah. Dean´s my big brother and he tends to worry far too much." The grin in Sam´s face tapered off, leaving a fond smile in its wake.

The first houses came into sight and within minutes, they were standing in front of the only motel in Newcastle. Will didn´t have time to turn the engine off before a man with dark hair and a furious expression on his face hurried towards them. He ripped the passenger door open.

"I hope for your sake you didn´t lie to me, Sam, because if you´re anything but fine I´ll kick your ass into next week!" he growled without even acknowledging Will´s presence, eyes searchingly roaming over Sam´s body before settling on the makeshift bandage on his side. The taller man appeared pretty unfazed by the threat and pointed towards Will.

"Dean, this is William McCoy, the man who gave me a ride and supplied me with the contents of his first aid kit to cover up a scratch-"

"Scratch, my ass, the last time you had a scratch they nearly had to amputate your foot, so don´t give me that shit!" Dean bent over Sam and inspected their handiwork with a gentleness that belied the anger in his voice, while the Sam just closed his eyes and let his brother work. After a thorough examination Dean apparently found that there was no immediate need for an amputation and looked up at Will, who just sat there staring at the scene unfolding in front of him in silent wonder.

"I guess I´ve got you to blame that this stupid idiot ever found his way out of the woods, which means that I owe you a thank you. So, uhm, thanks" He nodded once before starting to pull Sam from the car, while the latter protested that he could still walk on his own, thank you very much. Once he was standing, Sam turned around and leaned back down.

"Yeah, thank you, Will. Don´t know where I´d be now without you. You and your compress-holding skills."

Will mirrored his grin and held out his own hand. "Anytime. Been nice to meet you,Sam."

His passenger shook it once before stepping back where Dean was already waiting, putting a steadying hand on his shoulder.

"Likewise. Be safe." Sam closed the door and Will turned on the engine.

As he got back on the road and pointed the car towards his mother´s house, he could see the two strange men in his rearview mirror. The smaller one, the older brother, had put a protective hand around the taller one´s back as they were slowly making their way towards what Will assumed was their room. They were still talking, and the last thing he saw of them before turning into the main road was Sam, face lighting up with laughter about something Dean had said.

 _Well, I guess I wouldn´t mind having siblings like that_.

 **And that´s it for today:) Hope you enjoyed this chapter and if you have any prompts, let me know:)**


	3. Desperate measures

**I´m back:)**

 **Thanks to everyone, who took the time to read and review, I really appreciate it.**

 **Once more thanks to the amazing Soncnica, who helped me salt and burn some plot holes in this one:)**

 **Warnings for blood, swearing and maybe medical procedures(Is that a thing?Idk)**

 **Set in Season 2, after "Nightshifter", so while the FBI is already searching for the boys  
**

Looks like old McQuire had been right about the storm.

The old man claimed to be a veteran in both the Vietnam and the Korean war, which could be true enough, but then again, he also claimed he once spend the night of his life with Marilyn Monroe in a drug store´s backroom in Vegas. Whichever the case may be, Timothy Mcquire was a harmless old fellow with second stage lung cancer who had charmed his way into the hearts of nurses and doctors alike and whenever she had taken his readings or administered another dose of morphine in the last couple of days he had told her that he could feel a storm coming, could feel it deep in his bones right where he'd „caught a bullet" back in 1952.

And here it was.

It was only five in the afternoon, the end of her twelve hour shift at the Chicago General, and the strength of the wind caught her completely off guard when she left the air-conditioned building. It whipped her hair into her face and swept the harsh coldness of approaching winter under her coat in seconds. Dark clouds loomed threateningly over the skyscrapers, as if daring them to touch, just one little scrape and the floodgates would burst open. And open they would eventually, there was no doubt about it. The way it looked right now, she´d consider herself lucky if she reached her car without getting drenched.

Determined, she tightened the grip around her bag and quickened her steps, turning to the right towards the nearly empty staff parking lot. She didn´t look right or left, eyes fixed on the shape of her beat-up Corsa, second last on the right side, beside the ancient oak tree management promised to cut down every autumn before it resigned itself to its fate and took innocent cars (or their owners) with it.

When she felt cold steel pressed to her spine she barely suppressed a sigh. _Stupid, Caroline, fucking stupid_.

This was Chicago, after all, 2nd biggest city on the eastside and half the folks who landed themselves in the ER round here sported knife wounds or bullet holes. So far she´d been lucky, never walked the wrong street at the wrong time, but living in this city, she figured it would happen sooner or later.

"Okay, don´t move, don´t scream, okay?"

There was a hand on her shoulder now, not pushing or pulling or squeezing, just resting there as if to keep her in place.

"I got it"

Hoping to sound more confident than she felt, she began to mentally calculate the amount of money this would cost her. Not much regarding cash, and it wasn´t like she brought jewellery to work, but damn, that phone was new!

"You`re a nurse, right?"

Huh. Not the question she expected from someone who was pressing a gun to her back.

As a nurse she knew that appearances were nothing but deceiving, but her attacker´s voice sounded completely normal. A little raspy maybe, like its owner couldn't really afford cough syrup, but that was it. No greed, no threat, no triumph.

"Yes, I am." What was the point in lying anyway?

Her would-be robber/kidnapper/murderer took a deep breath "Okay, put your hands were I can see them and turn around slowly."

She obeyed silently, dropping her bag, stretching her hands out in front of her and turned around as slowly as she could.

 _Younger than I would have guessed. Younger than me, in any case. Fucking huge, and isn't that just perfect_ , she thought with a surge of resignation as she gave up on her last hope of escaping.

He held the gun with the kind of confidence that spoke of experience, but if she didn`t know better, she´d say there was something apologetic about his stance. He regarded her carefully and she forced her chin up, staring right back.

Upon closer inspection he looked worse than some of the cases she´d seen on the examination table today: Red-rimmed eyes, purple bags beneath, ugly bruises forming all over his pale face. His shirt was darkened by something that looked like dried blood to her eyes and she would know, but he held the gun steadily pointing at the centre of her chest.

"I need you to come with me."

She swallowed hard. Her money he could take, her phone, damnit, the car if he wanted but she wasn´t going to be kidnapped right now, during the daylight in a hospital´s parking lot with cars rushing behind them on the road and people talking and just no, no way, no…

"No, not like that! I promise I won´t hurt you."

She saw his mouth moving but it took awhile until the words penetrated the fog of panic in her mind. _Not gonna hurt me, right_.

As if reading her thoughts the guy lowered the gun a little. "I mean it. You gotta believe me."

"What do you need me for?"

It had been her voice saying that but she felt strangely disconnected from her mouth, like this wasn´t happening to her at all.

But with that one sentence the balance between them shifted. She was still the one being held at gunpoint but all of a sudden it felt like he was the vulnerable one.

"My brother. He´s badly hurt and he needs more help than I can give him…"

He didn't need to say the „And we can´t afford to go to the hospital" for her to hear it. No insurance, criminals, apparently, maybe even wanted, but while her mind was still processing this information, something deep within her already knew the answer and it had nothing to do with the gun.

"Show me"

The rain began to fall in earnest as they started to make their way over the parking lot and into small side roads leading away from the hospital. Tall Guy, as she decided to call him for a lack of a better term, had tucked the gun away for now but he was always walking half a step behind her and she had no doubt that he meant business. If all this really was about an injured brother, and her gut told her he hadn't lied about that, she could actually sorta understand the guy. She´s seen people die, seen their families in the waiting room and knew what they would have given to avoid that, what everyone would give. It was only two years since her Jonny lost his fight and if there had been a gun lying around back then, God knew what she would have done.

"You can have my jacket if you want."

She nearly jumped out of her skin when Tall Guy suddenly broke the silence. It took her a few seconds to process his offer and register that she was indeed shivering. What now, a criminal with manners?

„No, thank you." _This is so surreal._

He led her around another couple of corners into a part of the town she had never been to. Every second window was barred up or broken, the walls filled with crude words in all kinds of languages, some of whom she couldn´t even identify. They didn´t meet many people but those they came across lurked in the alleyways and leaned on the dumpsters and it all looked so much like a cliché she wanted to believe it was fake.

What was odd, however, was the way her captor always made sure to keep his body between her and everyone else, as if to shield her. There were no words spoken, no obvious movements and at first she didn´t even realize he was doing it at all, but after awhile she noticed the pattern, the way he always managed to stand between her and possible danger and she had to admit to herself that she was impressed. There was something about him that set him apart from everyone else and even though there was something undoubtedly predatory about him she instinctively knew that she wasn´t the one that needed to be afraid.

"Right over there."

He came to a stop in front of a rundown abandoned store building. The front door had been broken out of its hinges and the walls had deep cracks and all in all it looked like the kind of place you wouldn´t leave with all your body parts attached.

Her captor didn´t hesitate to step through the door, not even looking behind himself as if he was completely certain she´d follow him anyway and before her mind could fully realize her chance for flight her feet had already carried her over the doorstep.

It was dark inside, the remaining daylight easily swallowed by thick stone walls. Outside, she could hear the rain beating down on concrete as her eyes adjusted. She stood in a long hallway with doors on both sides and she had to squint to make out the form of the guy that brought her here, hurrying down the corridor with increasing speed, leaving a trail of water that dripped from his soaked clothes.

"It's down here" He called over his shoulder, his voice bouncing off the walls as he beckoned her to follow,

She took off after him, stepping through puddles and over bottles and plastic bags and then she saw him disappearing through the last door on the left side.

There was a sharp intake of breath, a muffled curse and then

"Hey, hey, hey, Dean, what are you doing? I told you to stay down and wait, come on, stop it!"

She could only hear a low groan before she stepped around the corner.

To be honest, she didn´t really know what she expected. Something bad, obviously, since her captor wouldn´t have bothered threatening her with a gun for a paper cut. But this…

She didn´t want to imagine how this even happened.

Tall Guy was leaning over a man who was laying on a couple of dirty blankets, hands on his chest and shoulder to stop him from struggling while keeping up a constant litany of "It´s gonna be okay, Dean" and "Quit movin, you idiot!".

"Dean" didn't really listen to him. From her position it looked like he didn´t even fully realize there was someone in the room with him, but after one closer look she had to admit she was surprised he was conscious at all. His face was covered in cuts and bruises; there were several smaller bandages on his right leg where his jeans had been cut open. And then there was what looked like second degree burns that covered his entire left torso, running from the shoulder down to his hipbone.

"Smmy, tha´you?"

His voice was gruff and slurred and the words more a whisper than anything, yet they froze both her and her captor to the spot. Dean had stopped struggling to stare at his brother, eyes fogged over with confusion, but for a few moments he seemed able to focus on the face in front of him and he lifted a shaky hand to grip the taller one´s shoulder.

"Yeah, man, it´s me. I brought someone here to help you."

She could see the cords in his neck straining as he slowly turned his head and squinted in her direction, then his eyes widened.

"No, no… told you you shouldn´t… is too dangerous…" His slurring became more and more agitated, his hand grasping at his brother's shirt as if he would shake some sense into him if he had the strength for it.

"Hey calm down, it´s alright, it´s taken care of; no one will know we were here."

She couldn´t make sense of what they were talking about and so she just blocked the conversation out. She was here for a reason, after all and she intended to get this done. And try not to think about what would happen to her after closer, she could feel her brain switch into triage mode, eyes methodically roaming over her patient's body to locate every hidden injury, in order to be able to determine what would kill him first.

"Okay, what injuries did you find?"

She dropped down next to the brothers, interrupting their conversation and stared at Tall Guy imploringly.

He immediately straightened up and gave her a run down: Multiple small cuts and bruises on his legs and arms already wrapped, black eye, assumed concussion, two cracked rips and excessive burn marks on his torso, basically what she expected. He talked without hesitation, all the while keeping a reassuring hand on his brother´s arm.

 _Definitely not his first ride._

"Look, I would have done this himself, honestly, but the burns are too deep and widespread for me to deal with I didn´t know what else to …"

He trailed off, looking at one of the puddles on the ground and if she could forget that he threatened her with a gun that was still hooked in the waistband of his jeans she might even feel sympathy for the guy, even though it was a little too late for apologies now. She turned back to her patient.

"Okay, Dean, I´m quickly going to check you over, try to stay still and tell me if I hurt you."

Dean´s eyes had slowly closed during their conversation and he didn´t seem to even register her words, but when she carefully placed a hand on his leg he shot up straight, eyes filled with panic "No, no, please! Not Sammy, no, I won´t let you,I won´t-"

"Dean, calm down, it´s okay! It´s done, remember? I´m fine, thanks to you. You´re with me, alright?"

While she froze to the spot at his obvious distress his brother had leaned in closer, placing both hands on either side of Dean's face. "You are okay, big brother, just a little banged up and I brought someone here to help with that, okay? Dean?" They stared at each other in silence, Dean´s frantic breathing slowing down with every passing second until he sagged forward in exhaustion, only kept up straight by his brother's hands.

"Are you with me now?"

"Yeah, I´m with you" Dean´s voice was wrecked and bone tired but he actually sounded coherent.

She watched the exchange in silence , giving them space, because she didn´t know this guy, had no idea what he had done, how he had come to where he was now, but she has worked this job long enough to know what trauma looked like.

She stopped judging her patients long ago. Taking heroine, getting in knife fights, drinking yourself to a coma, those things would get you hurt, but recognizing that was the responsibility of the person on the examination table. Her job was the fixing up; giving them the chance to actually come to that conclusion. So to her it didn´t really matter what this Dean guy got himself into, she would do her job as best as she could.

She remained motionless until the younger brother turned his eyes to her, because another thing she had learned to recognize over the years was when she couldn´t help, when her patients needed something or someone else to ground them and it was obvious that Dean needed his brother. Once he gave her a nod, she turned back to the injured man in front of her. "I will make this gentle and quick, tell me when you need a break." She held his gaze until he nodded and then got to work.

She quickly patted him down, checking the blood circulation in his limbs and his pupil reaction for signs of brain injury and taking his pulse. Her patient remained silent during the whole procedure, only speaking to answer her Who, When and What questions with monosyllable responses, never even flinching away and while it made her work easier, there was something deeply wrong with somebody being this unfazed by being in obvious pain.

"Okay, like your brother said, you are sporting heavy bruises on both of your legs, but there is no muscle or bone damage from what I can tell. Your temperature is elevated but not yet dangerously so. Eye reaction is fine and you´re oriented enough that we don´t have to worry about any dangerous brain injuries right now."

She turned to the younger brother "It goes without saying that this is field triage at best and all of this should be checked out in an actual hospital."

"Yeah, I know" He looked down at his knees, voice cracking a little and she fought the sudden urge to tell him everything´s gonna be okay. A nurse cannot allow herself to make promises like that.

"And you were right to worry about the burns. What first aid supplies do you have?"

He hurried over to the corner and brought a big first aid kit with him that she didn´t notice before simply because it was so old it was barely recognizable as such. Its contents consisted mainly out of gauze and bandages that looked at least as old as the thing itself. She didn´t need to look at the expiration dates to know that none of them should be used on open wounds anymore, but there was nothing she could do about that now. At the bottom of the kit was a smaller box containing all sorts of half empty pill bottles, some pretty heavy pain killers, others prescription antibiotics. Definitely not your average family med kit, but the only thing that counted for her was that it was all still usable.

"Do you have clean water?" She turned to Tall Guy who nodded and reached for one of several sealed bottles standing close to the wall.

"Soak these" She held out a couple of bandages. He wordlessly complied.

"We need to clean the wounds before we can start wrapping them." She explained to both brothers. "It´s not gonna be pretty, but we´ll be quick."

She slipped on a pair of surgical gloves that was still in her pocket before taking one of the soaked bandages that Tall guy handed her. "You ready?"

"Will you two stop now when I say no?" Dean managed a crocked grin that she couldn't help but return before she shook her head. "Didn´t think so", he mumbled before closing his eyes, trying to prepare himself for what was to come. She looked up at his brother and was momentarily taken aback by the mixture of adoration, affection and concern that warred on his features. She cleared her throat and he snapped to attention. "We´ve got work to do."

They worked mostly in silence, Tall Guy carefully peeling his brother´s tattered shirt away from the skin and she cleaned as best as she could. The burned skin was already starting to peel of, blisters forming all over while she carefully tried to wash the worst of the grime away. Dean took it all without complaining, clenching his teeth whenever the pain got too bad. Whenever he tensed up his brother would place a gentle hand on his body or mumble something under his breath and Dean would relax a little. It took them what felt like an hour until they could start wrapping the burns with bandages covering his complete torso. When they were finished Tall Guy produced a couple of old moldy blankets they wrapped around him carefully.

It was only when she took Dean´s pulse while his brother put the last of the stuff away, satisfied that it was much slower than before, that she became aware of the silence. The rain had stopped and the sound of her patient´s labored breathing was the only thing that could be heard in the room.

"What do you think?"

She stood up from where she was crouched next to Dean, discarding her gloves and putting them into her pocket.

"The biggest danger right now is a possible infection. He needs stronger stuff than what you have here; he needs warmth and an actual bed." She felt a pang of regret at her harsh words when she saw Tall Guy sinking into himself, but the truth was rarely pretty in her profession.

"I know, and believe me, if I could take him to a hospital, I would-"

"Well, if you care about him, then you damn well should and damn the consequences! In jail he would at least have an actual bed to lie on!"

 _Why are you doing this, Caroline?It´s not your problem, just leave it-_

But she couldn´t, it went against her every instinct. Maybe she made a vow to herself not to get involved into her patients shit but no one could ever accuse her of not caring about them.

Tall guy laughed then, a harsh, bitter sound. "You have no idea what you are talking about." His voice dropped into a dangerous growl, but she wasn´t scared, not when there was only sadness in his eyes.

He turned away from her, gaze lingering on his sleeping brother´s form.

"There are things out there killing people. Dean, he tried to protect someone from them, that´s how he got hurt."

He turned his eyes back to her. "If we go to the hospital, they will find us."

She stared at him, trying to comprehend what she just heard. "What do you mean with: things that hurt people?"

Tall Guy rubbed a hand down his face, apparently fighting with himself before he sighed.

"Look, it´s complicated and I know it sounds insane, but it´s the truth. You got to believe me."

She´d heard a few crazy things in her time, that was for sure, but for a second she was convinced that it would be the best course of action to call her colleagues from the psychological department to make two more beds ready.

 _What´s that even supposed to mean: things?Are we talking monsters here?_

On the other hand there was the fact that she had always prided herself in having good instincts when it came to people and after everything she´d seen of this guy, he just didn´t appear to be insane. Scarily good with a gun, utterly protective and in way over his head, yes, but not crazy.

She took a deep breath, the ache in her temples reminding her that this day had already been long enough as it was and made her decision.

"You know what? Fuck it. I don´t care. I can´t just say I believe you, but you don´t exactly scream "bat shit crazy" to me either. So, there´s that."

She swallowed, steeling herself. " What´s gonna happen now?"

Tall Guy actually looked confused for a second before catching on. "Nothing. You can go."

 _Wait, what?_

"Aren´t you scared I´m gonna call the police or something?"

 _Wow, smooth. Why are you not offering to shoot yourself to save him the trouble?_

"Sure, but I guess that´s the risk I gotta take."

Part of her was still waiting for him to break out laughing anytime, but he looked completely sincere. _Well, that sincerity won´t keep his brother alive if he gets an infection._

She turned around and made her way over to the entrance where she had dropped her bag when she arrived. "Make sure he stays warm, try to get him to drink and take some antibiotics." She took a deep breath. "I´ll see you tomorrow."

She wanted to turn and leave, but there was a hand on her shoulder, stopping her.

"Thank you. Really, thank you so much for your help. I have no idea what I would´ve don-"

Up until this point in her professional life, no one has ever looked at her as incredibly grateful as this run down, dirty street guy and that was enough to know she´d made the right call here.

"Save it, kid. It´s my job, now, isn´t it?"

"My name is Sam."

 _Sam, huh? Alright, Tall Guy._

She reached for his hand. "I´m Caroline."

 _I can´t really believe I´m doing this._

The next evening she saw him directly after stepping out of the hospital. He was leaning against a lamppost on the other side of the street, huddled deeply into a sweater.

She hardly slept the night before, going over and over her decision in her mind but in the end she just couldn´t bring herself to forget about them. She should be more professional than this, of course she should, but Sam´s grateful words, the fear in his eyes and the feeling of Dean´s burning skin under her fingers just wouldn´t leave her mind and so when the time came she opened the medicine cabinet in the nurse´s room and slipped a couple of clean bandages, an IV set and some heavy-duty antibiotic in her bag. She was the station´s head nurse, which meant it wasn´t that much of a problem to cover for the missing supplies and even though the endless mantra of "I could loose my job" followed her all day she didn´t put them back into the cabinet.

She wordlessly followed Sam, who took a different route than yesterday, through the endless maze of dark alleys and poorly lit streets. Dean looked somehow even worse than yesterday and that was enough to make her forget all about the trouble she could get in for taking the meds. Like she had feared, the wounds were getting infected and what little medicine Sam had managed to give him was clearly fighting a loosing battle. She changed the soaked through bandages, set the IV up and dosed him up with the antibiotics she´d brought. Sam let her do it, one hand on Dean´s shoulder, the other absentmindedly ruffling his brother´s hair.

"He hasn´t been lucid since yesterday"

She was almost finished changing Dean´s bandages when his brother first spoke up. His voice was heavy with exhaustion and worry and she heard the plea in it, the unspoken _please tell me he´s okay, say it´s gonna be fine_.

"That doesn´t have to mean anything" Not really an answer, but she couldn´t bring herself to say that it didn´t look good. Dean´s temperature was too high and his heart rate too low and if this antibiotic currently running through his veins couldn´t fight the infection there was not much left that she could do here.

"Have you slept at all tonight?"

A change of topic was in order, even though one look at how Sam was swaying even where he was sitting made her question unnecessary.

"I had to make sure Dean´s ok."

And damn if that didn´t make her eyes burn. Thirty years she´d been working in health care now, caring for people everyday and watching them suffer and watching them die and sometimes it was hard; hard to remember that there was a reason to all of it. There was a reason to keep fighting for every patient, simply because there were people who love each other like that. Simply because of that kind of devotion that was in every word Sam said about his brother.

 _Please, don´t make me loose this one._

"Well, I can take over for a while. Lay down before you fall down, kid."

Sam muttered his protests and shook his head but before she was completely done with the bandages he had sunk down next to his brother, shoulder to shoulder, fast asleep.

She sat next to them silently until night had completely taken over the room, her phone screen the only source of light.

When Sam woke up, Dean´s temperature had started to go down somewhat and when she left, he walked her all the way back to her car.

The next day she looked for him when she left her work, but he wasn´t there. She waited for over half an hour before she reluctantly drove home, trying not to think about what this could mean. He didn´t come the day after that and the day after that she decided she´d had enough.

It took her two more days of searching the city after hours until she´d found the old warehouse again and when she stepped through the door she could already tell they were gone. She didn´t realize she was holding her breath until she stepped into the last room on the left and didn´t find Dean´s body.

Instead, there was a single white piece of paper in the place where he had been. She picked it up to see a phone number.

 _If you ever need help._

 _Sam and Dean_

 ** _Alright, there you have it. Reviews are love:)_**


	4. Blueberry muffins

**Hey folks:)**

 **Sorry for the delay, I wanted to have this up yesterday, but life had other plans.**

 **Thanks again for your reviews and follows, you´re awesome!**

 **Who else is awesome? My beta soncnica! (and if you haven´t checked her out by now, you definitely should)**

 **All remaining mistakes are mine alone:)  
**

 **This is set preseries and, fair warning, if you happen to hate John Winchester, you´re probably not gonna like this one. Also, in this piece Sam started college in 2002, being in his fourth year in 2005. For more info about the debate on how long exactly Sam was at Stanford, look at the supernaturalwiki under "Canon discrepancies".  
**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

It was about two weeks after the start of the new semester when Greta saw him for the first time. It had been unnaturally hot in the last few days, the city and its people eagerly waiting for the reprieve of rain and over the course of the day the sky had slowly filled with dark clouds. She had just finished covering up the chairs and tables outside when the downpour started. She watched the heavy drops fall against the large windows that opened up towards the street and imagined hearing the city sigh in relief for a moment, before turning back and preparing herself to close early today.

That was when her bell chimed and a tall, dark haired man stepped in. He was soaking wet, little droplets of rain running down his face and dripping on a leather jacket that had seen better days. _A fighter_. The expression in his face was thunderous, his mouth set in a thin line and his eyes blazing with an unspoken fury that made her wish for the baseball bat she always kept behind the counter for a second. Then she saw the way his shoulders were slumped, his whole posture speaking more of defeat than attack and she allowed herself to relax just a little. They stared at each other for what felt like minutes, before he asked: "You still open?"

His voice was deeper than she expected, sounding like old tires rumbling over gravel and there might have been a time when she would have found that attractive. As it was, she just nodded curtly.

"I´ll have a coffee, then", he mumbled before he let himself drop on one of the empty chairs by the window.

When she brought him the coffee, all traces of his earlier wrath had vanished from his face, leaving a heavy kind of sorrow in their wake that made his features look almost soft. He barely acknowledged her, simply stared out in the rain that was still going strong while he took an absentminded sip. She had long stopped wondering about the people who came into her little shop- about people in general, really- and so she just let him sit there, nursing his coffee, while she cleaned up the remains of the day. She took out the trash to one of the containers in the yard behind the house and when she returned, her costumer was gone, his cup carefully placed on the counter beside a crumpled note. He paid nearly twice the price for his coffee.

She stood there staring at the table he just sat at before she shook her head and put his cup away. As she locked the door behind her, she had already forgotten about her strange visitor.

* * *

The next time Greta saw him was about three weeks later. It was two in the afternoon, the busiest time of the day with college students looking for a quick bite to eat between lectures, some of her regulars having lunch at the tables in the corner and the first elderly women of the afternoon searching for a place to drink coffee and chat with the neighbors. She was jotting down orders, frying eggs, handing out paper towels and working her coffee machine at the same time, yet again musing about whether it might be time to get some help in the shop when she turned around and there he was. She recognized him immediately, the gruff looking features and the old leather jacket unmistakable, even though he looked world weary and tired this time. He gave her a barely perceptible nod before he mumbled "One coffee, please" and stepped aside for the next costumer.

While she continued to work, she always kept an eye on the man who sat at the same table as last time, staring sightlessly at the tablecloth.

He was handsome, sure. But that wasn´t why she looked. She had kept her ring to always remind her why not.

So, even though he was undoubtedly attractive, there was also something about him that set him apart from her other costumers. She couldn´t put her finger on it yet, but she had to admit to herself that she started to become curious. After the afternoon rush died down, she wandered by the tables, putting a new candle here and cleaning a spot on the tablecloth there before she stopped next to him. As far as she could tell, he hadn´t moved once since he sat down. He was just sitting there, taking one breath after another and making it look like even that was hard to do. She felt the sudden urge to pat his shoulder.

Instead she asked: "Anything else I can get you?"

He blinked up at her like he had completely forgotten where he was. And for a moment, she could catch a glimpse of the pain that made him slump his shoulders in that strangely expressive eyes, before he straightened and the grim frown was back. But he couldn´t fool her, and by the way his voice shook just the tiniest bit, she could tell he knew it too.

"You wouldn´t happen to know a Sam Winchester?"

The question threw her off guard, but she still went through the mental list of people she knew, coming up blank. "No, I´m afraid I don´t".

The man´s face never changed when he nodded slowly, but she still found herself wishing she could have given him a different answer. It was that wish that prompted her to say: "But I could ask around if you want me to."

The man looked up at that and held her gaze for the longest of seconds. The hope she imagined seeing there at first seeped out of his features the more time passed and eventually he dropped his gaze, shaking his head as slowly as if he had to force his muscles to move.

"No, I don´t think that would be a good idea. Thank you, though".

"It´s Greta." She wore a name tag, of course, but still.

A beat of silence.

"John".

No last name. Not that she minded.

John fumbled for his wallet, but she waved him of. "Keep it. You paid for that one the last time." Before he could answer the bell rang and she turned around to take the orders of the elderly couple that had just entered the shop. When she turned around again, she was not surprised to see that John was gone.

* * *

About a month later, Greta was walking down the road towards the shop, weighed down by three heavy bags filled to the brim with decorations. The Halloween season had caught her somewhat off guard this year, because she had been busy organizing someone to fix the rusty pipes in her kitchen and getting a new front window some drunken college kids had smashed last week. When she finally found a moment to breathe she realized that Halloween was nearing rapidly and the only piece of seasonal decoration she still owned was a pack of serviettes with pumpkins on them. She closed early and decided to walk to the nearest supermarket since the sun had actually been shining today for the first time in what felt like weeks. Now she regretted not taking the car a little bit.

Greta arrived at the door and tried to free one of her hands to reach her keys. While trying to juggle the keys and the three plastic bags, one of them suddenly ripped open and the contents spilled all over the sidewalk. She looked down at the broken glass and the scattered candles and felt incredibly tired.

"Let me help you with that."

The unexpected voice startled her. It´s owner, a man with unruly brown hair and a college sweater, crouched down on the sidewalk and started gathering up the items while she simply stood there, staring at him. Her lack of reaction didn´t seem to offend the man. He just began to carefully pick up the shards of broken glass and formed a pile beside him. Then he sorted out the material that was still usable; the little pumpkins she intended as table decoration, a few tea lights, the serviettes she bought because they fitted to those she had left from last year and the little scarecrow she wanted to put on the counter beside the cash register.

"You might need a new bag for these", the man said eventually, motioning towards the remaining decorations. _The boy, really_. Now that she could see his face, she noticed that he was a lot younger than she had originally assumed, the last traces of childhood not yet completely gone from his features. The college sweater in combination with the shy, boyish smile he gave her made her guess freshman. That could also explain why she had never seen him before. It wasn´t like she knew all the students in town, of course, but her little shop was rather popular among them and she took pride in never forgetting a face. Yet, for some reason, she felt a strange sense of familiarity when her eyes met his.

"Ma´am?"

Only now Greta realized that she was still staring at him in silence. She shook her head at herself _. Not yet senile, now, are we?_

"Yes, of course. Good thing I don´t have to go very far, isn´t it?" She turned around, put her other bags down on the floor like she should have done the first time around and finally opened her door. When she returned with another bag the boy reached for it, but she declined. She believed in cleaning up her own messes.

"You want me to bring those inside?" He motioned for the bags still sitting at the sidewalk beside the door.

"I really appreciate your help, young man, but I think I will be fine".

He grinned. "I didn´t doubt it, Ma´am, but it´s not like I have anywhere to be." Before she could protest further, he added: "And maybe I´m hoping to get a cup of coffee out of this?"

The smile he flashed her now held a note of playfulness and even though she knew exactly what he was doing she found herself agreeing.

"On one condition: My name is Greta, so don´t call me ´Mam´. There are still some blond hairs left on my head, you know?"

He laughed at that, the kind of laugh that kind of made you want to join in. "You´re a tough negotiator. I´ll concede." He reached down and she found her own hand nearly disappearing in his when she took it.

"I´m Sam" he said, pulling her to her feet.

"Nice to meet you, Sam. And thank you for your help", she shook his hand once before releasing it.

They walked into the shop together and put their respective bags on the counter. Sam insisted on helping her put her stuff away and Greta found she enjoyed his company, so she let him be. She wasn´t sure where the idea came from, but the longer she thought about it, the more she felt like it was the right thing to do. By the time he tried to pay for the coffee she brought him after they were finished she had decided to trust her gut feeling on this one.

"So, Sam, how would you feel about working here?"

* * *

The two of them fell into a routine pretty easily. Since Sam was, like she had correctly guessed, a freshman student, he could only help out in the evenings and sometimes on the weekend, but that was fine with her. She found herself enjoying the work with her new colleague more than she had thought she would.

For one, Sam was a hard worker, always on time, never forgetting an order and never one to complain when the last costumers stayed after closing time. More often than not, he stayed to help her close down the shop and as her heater broke a few weeks before Christmas, he insisted on trying to fix it himself before she called someone. He spent three evenings working on it before he had to admit defeat to the antique appliance but she appreciated the gesture anyway. He was also good with the costumers, giving everyone a kind smile and a few words even when things were busy and he knew the names of all her regulars after barely a week of work.

Despite all this, she noticed that while he was great at making conversation with the costumers and never failed to entertain her with random yet interesting facts when the business ran low, he hardly ever talked about himself.

When she asked him for his last name on the day she offered him the job he answered "Johnson" without hesitation, looking straight into her eyes and yet she couldn´t shake the feeling that he did not tell her the truth. You couldn´t work around lots of different folks for years without developing an instinct in that regard. Maybe it had something to do with the circumstances, under which they had met, but she found herself trusting him anyway and any lingering doubt fled after she had seen him work for the first few weeks. He had listened to old Granny Rose tell him the same long story about how she lost her necklace and found it in the fridge weeks later for four days in a row without ever losing his patience and if he thought that his last name was his own business, she was honestly fine with that.

When she asked him about his studies, he willingly told her about his classes and, eventually, about his dream to become a lawyer, but it always felt like he was weighting his words carefully, trying to gauge just how much he could tell her.

Then she asked him about his home, his family and it was like she had flipped a switch. He mumbled something about his dad being a travelling mechanic and having an older brother called Dean before hastily excusing himself to clean the windows she knew for a fact he had cleaned yesterday. She tried a few more times after that, but he always brushed her of, not unkindly but with determination, and so she eventually let it go.

And then there was this one time only a few weeks after he had started working for her. Their last costumers, a couple that was so infatuated with one another that they had completely forgotten the time, had left around ten and Sam had insisted on staying to help her clean up. When they stepped into the night, she spotted them immediately: four kids, probably not much older than Sam, walking down the sidewalk towards them. More like staggering, to be accurate.

Even from a distance Greta could hear them shout at each other, tongues heavy with beer, each of them carrying a bottle. Sam saw them too and she could feel him tensing up as the group neared. She was about to reassure him that no one had yet dared to attack an old lady like her, when something changed. The tallest guy stopped midstride, harshly grabbing a slightly smaller kid with a red base cap by the shoulders and slamming him into the wall. The smaller guy tried to wrangle himself free, pushed the arms holding him away forcefully and stumbled out of reach while yelling obscenities. They were only a few feet away from Sam and her when the tall guy caught up with Basecap and hit him square in the face. Basecap staggered backwards with a scream, slamming into one of her windows and knocking over the flowerpots in the process.

"Hey!"

Greta startled at the voice suddenly booming over the commotion and it took her a few seconds to realize that it was Sam who had shouted. The four guys seemed to be just as surprised as she was: the two that had been hurrying to participate in the developing fight stopped in their tracks, the tall guy let the fist he had already aimed at one of the newcomers fall and even Basecap lifted his head off the ground. They looked as baffled as she felt when Sam walked up to the attacker.

"If you want to beat yourself up, take it elsewhere."

He didn´t speak loudly, but he didn´t need to. There was an authority behind his words, in the way he held himself. It was a fighter´s stance and after one look at his usually open face Greta knew that he was more than ready to underline his order with more convincing arguments if necessary. His whole demeanor had changed and there was something dangerous in his stare that made her suddenly glad to not be on the receiving end of it.

The tall guy held Sam´s gaze for a few seconds before raising his hands in an exaggerated gesture of defeat. "Hey, it´s alright, tough guy, we´re just having a little fun here." He sounded a lot soberer than just a few seconds before. Then he reached out and patted Sam on the shoulder. "No need to freak out, dude"

There was something odd about the way he spoke and a sense of foreboding filled Greta. But before she could call out a warning the guy had pulled back the hand that was still holding on to his beer bottle and brought it down, aiming at Sam´s head.

What happened next simply went down too fast for her to follow and even looking at it in retrospect she found that she had no idea how Sam had managed it. One second he stood there, and she thought she could already hear the glass shattering, calculating the time it would take her to run back inside to call for an ambulance, and the next second the bottle went flying, Sam grabbing the hand that was still moving towards his head with rapid speed and used his attacker´s momentum to propel him forward while simultaneously swiping his feet away from under him with his right foot. In the blink of an eye, the bottle crashed on the sidewalk on the other side of the road and the tall guy was lying face down on the street.

Sam was on top of him, holding his arms behind his back and it was only because everyone present was stunned into silence that she could her him whisper: "Get lost. Don´t make me repeat myself."

She was no fool. What she had witnessed that day was not some brave and naive college boy getting lucky but an experienced fighter taking control of the situation. Sam had done this before, knew what to expect and moved through the motions like they were second nature to him. If he were older, she would have guessed Army, but as it was, she had no idea what to think of this new version of her employee. He had brushed her of yet again when she asked him about it later by telling her about learning a thing or two about Karate in High school. She knew what knowing a thing or two about fighting looked like and that was not it. This time it was not only the respect for his privacy that kept her from digging deeper, though. There had been something in his eyes that night, something dark, and she found herself thinking that she may be better of not knowing the answer to that particular question.

* * *

It had been at least three months since she had last seen him. It was Tuesday evening and Sam had asked her to get this night off because he had a paper to finish. She agreed, of course, but after spending the better part of the evening cleaning dishes alone in the kitchen she found that she kind of missed his company. Greta stepped back into the main room, expecting to find it empty since closing time was nearing rapidly, but she was wrong. He leaned on the counter staring outside as if he´d only been here yesterday. Despite the cool January weather he wore the leather jacket she had come to associate with him.

"John"

"Greta"

He looked up and only now she saw the three angry red marks that ran from his earlobe down the entire right side of his face. "A work accident", he shrugged and gave her a lopsided grin that was probably meant to be reassuring.

"What kind of job do you do again?" she couldn´t help but ask.

"Mechanic. Slipped with a cutter" He never missed a beat. _Well, I call bullshit_.

"Could I get a coffee, please?"

"Well, this is a coffee shop, so that should be doable." It came out sharper than she intended, but it was late, and he was lying to her anyway.

"Well, I´m glad. Then I think I´ll risk ordering one of these", he leaned forward a bit to read the label," blueberry muffins, too." He threw her a smile that would have made her blush once upon a time and walked over to _his_ table by the window. She noticed that he tried to avoid putting weight on his right foot. Greta looked down at the blueberry muffin, the only pastry left from the afternoon, and then back at John who was in the process of lowering himself into a chair a little too carefully for a healthy person. _Well, I´ll be damned_.

She grabbed the muffin, poured what was left of the coffee into a cup and put them on a tray before walking over to her only customer. She dropped it on his table with more force than necessary before she let herself sink onto the opposite chair. His smile seemed equally amused and grateful. It suddenly occurred to her that this was the first time she actually saw him smile.

"You seem pretty cheery today", she commented as he took his first bite. It didn´t go by her how he briefly closed his eyes, apparently savoring the taste. He was lucky there had even been a muffin left; there was a reason why they usually were out come five pm.

"Do you have family here?" he asked her out of the blue. There was something disarmingly honest in the question and that was the only reason why she didn´t threw it back into his face immediately. Not that she intended to answer truthfully.

He didn´t need to know about Henry, who lived on the other side of town now, together with Loreen. He didn´t need to know that because it was fine. Back then, they had both made mistakes and it was not Henry´s fault that his one night stand was a keeper while hers just vanished into the night. It wasn´t that she hadn´t loved Henry, because she had. But life had been hard on both of them, then. He was always busy with the job and she had had her hands full trying to care for Cathy and Emily while keeping up the shop and over time, they had slowly forgotten how to show each other that love. So when they had both seen a chance for passion,or maybe just for compassion, they had reached for it, not with the intention to harm one another but out of the basic human need for the comfort of another warm body.

Looking back at it now, it hadn´t really been worth it. But there had probably already been too little left of their marriage to salvage, even before those nights in other people´s beds. They had mutually agreed that it was over, both equally regretful but honest, so the final divorce was as peaceful as it was distant. But while he moved on, she had lingered in the bitter world of _what could have been_ long enoughto wake up one morning and realize that she had no idea about her daughters` lives anymore. Now they studied as far away from California as possible, calling on her birthday and Christmas. But there was no need for her opposite to know that. She had long since decided that she was fine by herself.

"I used too."

He nodded once, placing his cup back on the table. They were silent for a while, John staring intensely out of the window and even though she didn´t expect an honest answer from him anymore she couldn´t help but ask: "Do you?"

Even though he was still looking away from her, she could see the small smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth. It was more wistful than it was happy, but there was something earnest in his features that she hadn´t seen there once since he first entered her shop thalf a year ago. Seconds ticked by and she already berated herself for thinking he would answer her when he finally spoke up.

"Yeah. I do".

It seemed like he had been speaking more to himself than to her, as if he had only realized what he said in the moment he heard his own voice waver through the empty room. He slowly leaned back in his chair, took a deep breath and boy, this man was tall when he actually sat up straight.

"That´s nice to hear", she said and realized that she meant it. Whatever fight he was fighting, it was good to know that he wasn´t all alone in it.

After that, it was like a dam had broken. He asked her about the shop and she found herself telling him the story of the starry-eyed country girl who opened it nearly forty years ago. He told her about his car, apparently some classic Chevy, and even though she could only tell cars apart by color he was a surprisingly good story teller. She spoke about how she loved music and went to a Simon and Garfunkel concert back in 1966 and he immediately joined in, going on and on about Keith Richard´s guitar riffs and Bob Seger´s song writing. He told her about Chicago and Vegas and little Podunk towns in the middle of nowhere and she pictured him there, felt the heat of summer on her face and the sharp winds of nearing winter in her hair and imagined to see the road fly by beneath her feet.

They didn´t know each other and they didn´t need to. They were just two strangers and maybe that was why they could talk to each other the way they did, because it was touch and go and nothing mattered but listen and being listened to.

It was after midnight when she closed the door behind her and watched John walk down the road. Before he got into his car, a sleek muscle car as black as the night itself, he turned around and waved her goodbye. She waved back and kept standing by the door until the tail lights vanished into the dark, feeling like she had just been part of something rare.

* * *

After that evening, it became a strange sort of ritual between them. Every now and then, John showed up at the café. Sometimes only a few weeks would pass between his visits, other times she didn´t seem him for two or three months, but eventually she stopped wondering about it. He usually came in the evenings. Over time, he entered the shop in various stages of clean-shaved, tired and injured, but it felt like they had come to some sort of agreement to simply accept without asking. He always ordered coffee and a blueberry muffin. Sometimes, when things were still busy, he would just sit there silently looking outside but never leaving without saying goodbye to her.

Other times, she would sit down with him and they would just continue talking like they had never stopped. For some reason, John seemed to have taken a special interest in Sam since she had first brought him up in one of her stories. None of their talks went by without John asking how her employee was doing, sometimes accompanied by a teasing "How many plates has he broken yet?", sometimes with a seriousness that always threw her of track for a second. She suggested half-jokingly for him to come during the evenings when Sam was working in the shop, but he just shrugged at that, saying something about how he could never tell when he´d be in the city again and that was that. He didn´t tell and she didn´t ask. It somehow didn´t feel right to tell Sam about these talks, and so she didn´t.

* * *

Sam had been strange all evening. Absentminded, unfocused. It was when he asked her the third time in as many hours how much the vanilla latté cost again when she had enough. It was late May and the marvelous weather brought people outside, milling down the streets, wandering through the parks and sitting in cafés enjoying the warm evening and so it took another thirty minutes until she had time to approach Sam in the kitchen where he stood drying plates.

"Sam?"

He swirled around and nearly lost grip of the plate currently in his hands. _That would have been the first one, John._

"Yeah?" Eyes wide open, arms hanging loosely by his sides, smiling slightly. The picture of innocence. She was having none of it.

"What´s up with you today?"

He put the plate away slowly as if he needed to figure out an appropriate response.

"What do you mean?" Apparently, he had decided on stalling as the course of action. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and lifted one eyebrow.

"We talked the new price list over together two weeks ago; you know how much a latte costs. And this right now would officially count as the first time I have ever managed to startle you."

He fidgeted with his towel a little bit, looking like a dear in the headlights and she softened her tone slightly. "are you having trouble at school? We could talk about your wage, if that´s the probl…"

"No! No,that´s not necessary, it´s fine, really. I´m fine", he interrupted quickly.

"Try again and you might convince me"

She was not his mother, nor did she attempt to be. But Sam had been nothing but kind to her and it would be a lie to say she didn´t care about the kid. He tensed up and for a moment it seemed like she had taken it too far with her last comment. Then he sighed and mumbled barely audible: "There is this girl…"

After closing time and some more or less gentle prodding from her side he told her about how he took American literature classes at the start of the spring semester and how he had walked into the auditorium and there she had sat, in the row below him.

"My roommate helped me find out that her name is Jessica Moore." There was something akin to reverence in his voice when he said her name. _Had Henry ever spoken about me like that?_

At some point during their conversation one of the whiskey bottles she kept in the pantry for special occasions found its way on the table. When she placed it in front of Sam he had looked at her strangely, as if he was suddenly looking right through her and seeing someone else.

As the evening went by and the bottle grew lighter, he told her about how he kept thinking about ways to approach Jessica but never found the courage, because what would he say and where would he take her and why would she ever agree to go out with him anyway?

She might have taken him by the shoulder at that, shaking him roughly and saying how much of a good guy he was and how she should feel grateful if he asked her out, goddammit. She would blame it on the alcohol later. He laughed at that before sobering up and then there was this strange look again.

"You´d get along great with Dean."

Sam´s voice was quiet. He looked past her, out the window and into the street and it suddenly occurred to her that he sat in the same chair that John would always occupy during their conversations. He shook his head slowly, smiling the kind of smile reserved for occasions when you actually felt more like crying.

"I mean, you never take shit from anyone and you sing in the kitchen when you think I can´t hear you and your pie is the best in the entire continental US." He chuckled humorlessly. " And I bet you could give Dad a run for his money when it comes to keeping your stuff organized."

This was the first time he ever willingly spoke about his family and _God_. There was a longing in his words she wouldn´t have thought her constantly rambling, optimistic employee capable of; a grief in his voice that made it nearly unrecognizable to her. It made her stupidly wish that she hadn´t placed the bottle on the table or started to talk about girls or whatever she did that turned him into this.

"God, I miss them so much."

It was barely a whisper. Sam sat on his chair, _John´s chair_ , hands clenched tightly around his empty glass, eyes lost in pictures beyond her reach. His shoulders were shaking ever so slightly and she didn´t dare to reach out to him because she could feel that he was just one move away from falling apart right here in front of her. And so she just sat with him silently, taking one breath after the next and pretended not to see the tears running down his face. It was the least she could do.

* * *

When Sam came in for work the next day, looking slightly hungover, she didn´t bring their talk up. They worked side by side as usual but he barely spoke. He moved on autopilot, the carefree boy she knew so effortlessly replaced with this broken image of a man that Greta briefly wondered if the former had been a façade all along. She shied away from the thought.

All day, between taking orders and making coffee and doing dishes she thought about something she could say, but she didn´t find the words. What she could do even less, however, was just letting him go on like this. She might not be able to fix whatever crack he had revealed to her yesterday, but there was something that she could try to help with.

"You could always take her here, you know?" Sam was busy gathering his belongings together after his shift when she entered the kitchen.

"What do you mean?" It was the first non-work related sentence he had said to her today.

"This Jessica. You know, watch a movie and then take her here to eat afterwards. I´ve heard it say that my pie is the best in the country. Some trucker fellow even told me once my blueberry muffins were better than sex. You know, might be useful information in the unlikely case that she says no, which would be a complete miss on her part and I don´t necessarily mean that in regard of my pastries." She looked him straight in the eyes to make sure she got her message across.

He chewed at his lower lip, looking lost in thoughts, before he stared back down at his backpack. Maybe what she said actually got through to him or maybe he sensed that she wouldn´t let him go without an answer because he eventually responded:

"You know what? I just might." He brushed her shoulder in a silent thank you on his way out and Greta let out a sigh of relief she didn´t knew she was holding as she found she could recognize his voice again.

* * *

As it turned out, the boy did appear to have some common sense when it came to taking an advice. It was a rainy summer evening precisely a week after their late-night conversation when he brought a girl with him. When she came over to take their orders, Sam introduced them.

"I´m Jessica", the girl said while shaking her hand, her kind smile unfazed by the way she regarded her attentively and how her daughters had always hated when she did that to whoever they had brought home.

"Greta. Pleased to meet you".

Over the course of the evening she would let her eyes wander to their table occasionally. Sometimes she saw Sam telling Jessica something, eyes sparkling with enthusiasm about the topic and she would sit there, eyes locked on his face, listening attentively, other times it would be the other way round. They were joking and laughing and forgetting to eat the food they ordered and happiness and longing fought for dominance in her heart.

 _It´s good to see him like this. There had been a time I looked like this_.

The shop slowly cleared out near closing time, but it was obvious that Sam and Jessica were far from finished talking and so she dropped the keys on their table on her way out.

"You know how it goes, Sam. Just bring them back to me tomorrow before nine. And don´t you dare think about cleaning up."

His mouth opened and closed a few times before he settled on a: "Alright. Thank you, Greta"

 _Good boy_. She turned to Jessica.

"Good night. And take care" She appeared to be a smart girl; she would understand what Greta was saying.

"I will, Greta. Thank you and good night."

She closed the door behind her and started down the sidewalk, thinking about faithfully spoken vows and broken promises and hoping for all she was worth that Jessica could keep hers.

* * *

From that point on she saw Jessica more often. They would come to her place to eat together sometimes, or she would pick Sam up after his shift.

And Sam.

He was different these days.

There was a new kind of optimism, a purpose in the way he behaved and his eyes would light up whenever Jessica entered the cafe, whenever he mentioned her name in a conversation. So when he eventually told her that they were together, the lack of surprise didn´t diminish her happiness for them. She found she quickly took a liking to the witty, kind-hearted girl herself, chatting with her a few minutes here and there over the counter when Sam was getting his stuff together.

One day, about three weeks after he had told Greta they would move in together, Jessica leaned over to her and whispered: "I think I might need your help. It´s Sam´s birthday next week and he told me how much he loves your blueberry muffins and so I figured I´d give it a go and try to make them myself, but not even my former flat mate's cat liked the results. Would it be possible at all to give me your recipe?" She looked equal amounts of hopeful and embarrassed. "I promise I will burn it as soon as I´m done and no words would ever leave my lips", she added quickly after a glance at the door Sam could appear from any second.

Greta tried her best to suppress a smile and keep her voice dead serious when she replied: "You better. It´s an old family recipe and you would not want my dear Grandma Belinda to haunt you for giving it away, believe me." After glancing towards the backroom door herself she opened one of her folders and handed a worn looking paper over the counter with a wink. Before Jessica could answer, Sam joined them and they said their good byes. As she watched them walk away together, Sam´s arms around Jessica´s shoulders, her mind was drawn back to the day when she first met Sam, offering her his help. _"It´s not like I have a place to be."_

 _Well, it´s good to see that you do now._

* * *

It was storming, rain of the kind that made you feel wet from just looking outside and Sam had been positively soaked when he entered the shop.

"Jesus, Sam, jackets exist for a reason" she muttered, shaking her head in fond exasperation.

"Really? I used to think their sole purpose was being decorative." He retorted and caught the towel she threw at him. Two minutes later he reappeared in dry clothes and started his shift. It turned out to be a busy day despite the weather. At some point she went into the back room to get more tea bags when her eyes fell onto his backpack. It was open and lay on its side, clothes and some other stuff spilling on the concrete when he left it there in haste. She was not thinking anything specific when she turned down to pick the items up, her mind already back behind the counter when she realized what she currently held in her hand. It was a small box, blue and unimposing, but she recognized the imprint on the lid immediately.

 _J &S. Jefferson and Sons._

The jeweler at the end of the street, where an affable old man with a dark red bow tie had sold her the ring she still wore now over forty years ago. Her wedding ring.

Her heart was beating rapidly and she couldn´t help the huge smile that broke out on her face. _Sam is going to ask Jessica to marry him_.

She carefully set the small box back into Sam´s pack, her fingers running over the imprint one last time. She put a few school books back and draped his still dripping clothes over the small heater. When she turned around again, the only thing left on the floor was a small leather-clad book without a title. Greta picked it up and turned it over in her hands, finding no hint on what kind of book it was. She could practically feel her Grandma´s scolding glare when she opened the first page out of simple curiosity.

And there she found it, scrawled into a corner in the messy block print she came to know well over the past two years. His name.

Sam Winchester

And suddenly the pieces fell together and she was back in October 2002, standing beside a desperate stranger with a leather jacket. " _You wouldn´t happen to know a Sam Winchester?"_

* * *

He came two days later and she was not ready. Not at all.

It was raining again, the drops beating angrily against her windows, the shop empty except her and him. Just like back then.

She had been so close to talking to Sam in the last two days, so close to telling him everything. But then she would tap him on the shoulder and he´d turn around and look at her questioningly, eyes growing more concerned with every second she kept quiet and she couldn´t do it. Greta remembered how his voice had sounded that night he spoke about his family and she would do what she could to prevent ever hearing him like that again. Even if that meant staying silent.

"Good evening, Greta. The usual, please." John smiled at her.

She nodded once before turning around quickly, afraid of what she might say if she looked at him any longer. She heard him walk towards the window, sitting down in his chair while she mechanically filled his cup. Two years ago she would not have thought about this. She did not wonder about the folks that came through her door, and why would she? Leave everybody to their own misery.

But things have changed since then and she wouldn´t stand for this. Not anymore.

Her resolve grew with every step she took towards him and when she finally placed his tray on the table her hands were barely shaking anymore. John looked up at her, eyebrows drawn together in confusion.

"Are you alright?"

"Am I alright?!"

She was not prepared for that question. Without the tray, her hands were shaking even worse. She folded them in front of her chest.

"I don´t know, to be honest. But there is something I do know, John."

He rose slowly, sounding more concerned than confused now.

"Greta, what are you talking about?"

"I do happen to know a Sam Winchester" It was hard to stop once she had started. "I know your son."

The sound of rain drops hitting glass was the only audible thing in the room. John´s face was a mask of stone, his voice dangerously low when he responded. "So, he told you, then?"

"Told me what? That his last name is Winchester? No, I figured that one out by myself. He introduced himself as Sam Johnson. He told me he studied law and wanted to become a lawyer. He told me he has an older brother and a father who is a traveling mechanic. And he sat right there, where you were just sitting, telling me how much he missed them." She had to take a deep breath, forcing her voice to sound steady.

"The way he spoke about you, I was sure you were dead."

John swallowed.

"And I´m hoping for your sake you have a damn good excuse for standing here right now!"

His expression slowly changed and the thunder in his eyes nearly made her take a step back. Nearly.

"I don´t know why that would be your goddamn business."

She sort of knew it all along, but if she had ever needed proof, it was right there. This man was dangerous. But it had been too long since she had anything to fight for and she wasn´t backing down now.

"Because I care about this kid and…"

There was a crashing sound when John`s cup hit the floor, black coffee forming a slowly growing puddle on the white floor.

"Do you think I don´t?!"

They were facing each other, her hands clenched into fists at her sides, John breathing heavily.

"Don´t you think I came here to check on him as often as possible, tried what I could to watch out for him?" His voice was lower now, the fury slowly draining.

"What good does it do me to know that? He doesn´t."

"He is better of not knowing."

"Do you honestly believe that?"

"Yes, I do. Because what you don´t know, lady, is that we didn´t part on the best of terms." He rubbed a weary hand over his face. "But I bet you never made these kinds of mistakes." The last flickers of anger went out and John let himself drop into his chair as if someone had cut the strings holding him up.

Greta was still standing, looking down at this man she had stopped thinking of as a stranger months ago and didn´t know what to do. She straightened her apron before sitting down herself. It was too late to go back now, anyway.

"Of course I did. My mistake lives across town in a fancy apartment. My mistakes went to the East Coast to study."

John was not looking at her but staring down at his folded hands and it was hard to believe that she had thought of him as dangerous mere minutes ago.

"He wanted to go. And then I told him to stay gone." Now, what could she say to that?

"I spent every day since then regretting it." That was the truth. She thought of all the lies he had already told her and wondered how she could have ever believed them.

"It is not too late, you know?"

He snorted, throwing her own words back at her: "Do you honestly believe that?"

Did she? The brutally honest answer would probably be no. What she had said was just a beautiful proverb, a nice idea in general. _It is never too late to fix your mistakes_. But she was old enough to know that some things had simply been broken too many times. And yet…

"I hope that."

After a few seconds she added: " I think Sam believes that."

The kid had a gift of looking through the bright spot in a dirty window, after all. And while she probably fooled herself into thinking she knew the Winchester men, there was something she was absolutely certain about: they were the kind of people that deserved a happy ending.

"Maybe you´re right. Both of you" John looked up from the table and now she knew why there had always been something strangely familiar about Sam´s eyes.

"Thank you for telling me. And for not telling him. That one´s on me. And, you know, for everything."

He offered to mop up the spilled coffee and she was too exhausted to protest. She picked up the shards of the broken cup and brought them outside to the bins. She expected to find the shop empty when she returned, but John was still standing in the doorway, waiting for her. He caught her gaze, nodded once and raised his hand.

Then he was gone.

She was left standing in the empty shop, staring at the door he had closed behind him. And then she picked up her phone to call her daughters.

* * *

Today would be Sam´s big day. The law school interview he had been worrying about for weeks. Greta hoped for the best and she had a good feeling about it. He called her three nights ago, asking to get the weekend off to clear some family business and she was happy to grant it. Maybe things were finally going right for the Winchesters.

The news trickled in with her first costumers. Apparently, there had been a fire in one of the apartments near the college campus. Unusual, sure, but not really a cause for concern. Maybe she would call Sam later, ask him how the interview went and if he knew anything about the accident.

As the morning progressed, the information became more concrete and a lump of dread began to form in her stomach. The apartment had been completely destroyed, people said. A girl that had been badly hurt turned into a girl that had died and she knew she was silly when she dialed Sam´s number, but she just had to make sure.

 _You have reached Sam. Leave your number and I come back to you. Piiep_

 _You have reached Sam. Leave your number and I come back to you. Piiep_

 _You have reached Sam. Leave your number and I come back to you. Piiep_

She closed the shop after lunch for what probably was the first time in history. The scene of the fire was easy enough to find. A few firemen had remained to make sure the flames would not break out again. From where she was standing in the hallway, she could see that the rooms were indeed completely burnt out, nothing but ashes left. Other people were standing around, some looking shocked, some quietly talking, some crying. A few candles were placed on the doorstep, but all she could think was that this place had already seen enough fire. The longer she stood there, smelling the lingering traces of fire and destruction, the harder she found it to breathe. But she had come here for a reason.

"Excuse me?" Greta tapped the man closest to her on the shoulder.

"What?" He was slightly smaller than Sam and white as a wall under his red rimmed eyes. She cleared her throat. "Do you know who lived here?" She regretted her choice of words immediately. But he just nodded slowly, as if he was long past caring about anything.

"Yeah, I do." He swallowed. "I did."

He glanced back at the doorframe, the door itself laying destroyed in the hallway after the firemen had kicked it in. She didn't push him. And maybe she should really go now, turn around and leave before he could answer, before she would now for sure, before-

"Sam and Jess." His voice cracked on the last word, and he turned away from her, his hand covering his mouth.

 _No. No it can´t be. It was a mistake, the guy was wrong and even if he wasn´t, surely they are more than two Sam´s and Jessica´s in Palo Alto, right?_

"Ma´am, maybe you should calm down" A young woman in a fireman´s uniform had stepped up to them, her hand on Greta´s shoulder. She barely felt it. Her gaze was locked on the open door and she could hear the flames crackling, eating their way through furniture and flesh, could feel the suppressing heat on her face and the smell of smoke was everywhere and it was too much-

"Are they…?"

Over the fog in front of her eyes she could not see who answered. "Jessica died here. Didn´t make it to the hospital." _Lord._

Somehow she found the courage to ask: "Sam?"

"Sam is gone. Some guy came and took him with him."

She closed her eyes, breathed out and let the tears fall.

* * *

Her shop stayed closed for almost a week. When they had heard what happened, her daughters had caught the next plane and so she wasn´t alone while she kept waiting by the phone. She read in the newspapers about the fire. Accident, they said. Faulty wiring. Bad luck.

She kept trying to reach Sam, but he never answered his phone.

She went to the funeral, together with her daughters. They stood there, among grieving people they didn´t know and all she could see was the small blue box with the wedding ring Jessica Moore would never wear. Sam wasn´t there.

The days went by and, eventually, she had to open her doors again, let her children go back to their lives on the other side of the country, continue. In the first few weeks, she always carried her phone with her wherever she went, just in case, but it stayed silent.

John didn´t come back. She didn´t really expect him to, remembering how he had looked when he had left the last time and recognizing a good bye when she saw one, but whenever her doorbell rung, she looked up, stupidly hoping to see a leather jacket.

All around her, live went on, the same blur of faces coming and leaving every day, but she couldn´t be bothered to remember them any longer. Even full of people, the shop felt empty with the knowledge that she was working here alone and when the last costumer went in the evenings and the silence surrounded her she couldn´t help to resent Sam just a little bit.

 _Why did you never call me back? Let me know where you are, if you´re ok. Are you okay?_

She didn´t think of quitting, of course. That was not an option. But she just kept moving through the motions, doing work alone that she became used to doing with someone else until one day she opened her recipe folder and saw that the old sheet with the wrinkles and the grease spots and the ingredients for the blueberry muffins wasn´t there.

It had burned along with Jessica.

Greta threw the folder away, hearing the satisfying sound of paper ripping and sank to her knees, sobbing like she hadn´t since the day her daughters told her they´d leave.

The next morning, she put up a new offer on her card: One Blueberry muffin and a coffee, the Winchester special. And then she put up an announcement on her window.

 _Assistant needed._

* * *

 **I´m evil. I know. Sorry. _  
_**

 **Having said this, Dean´s comment in "Bugs" about how John "** **used to swing by Stanford whenever he could" to see Sam at college without him noticing inspired this little piece.**

 **Let me know what you think:)**


	5. Live and let drive

**Hey folks:)**

 **I´m back with another story and this week I´m actually on time*pats own shoulder***

 **The reason why I´m on time is Soncnica´s super-quick beta (I say it again, you rock girl) and all remaining mistakes are mine alone.**

 **This is set preseries and also contains not-too-bad-father John, so beware.**

 **To Dragonsrule18: I haven´t forgotten your prompt and hope to be able to post it next.**

* * *

"Hey, honey, just wanted to let you know that I´m on the way home now."

Detective Jeffrey Reynolds dutifully kept both hands on the wheel, phone wedged in between his ear and his shoulder, while listening to his wife´s worried questions.

"No, it was nothing, just two kids who thought they could use the barn for a literal roll in the hay"

There was a chuckle from the other end of the line. " _Well, I guess we´ve all been there."_

Now it was his turn to laugh. "Just that we never actually got caught."

They shared a moment in companionable silence before he got back to business. "Anyway, I can be home in twenty."

" _Great, Hannah, Suzy and Michael are already waiting and the little one is completely in love with your model car collection."_

"I bet. Tell the kids I´ll hurry."

" _I will, just drive safe."_

He quickly loosened one hand from the wheel to end the call and put the phone on the seat beside him. The driver's window was rolled down, the warm breeze of a summer evening filling the car and he was more than ready to call it a night and make it back to his family.

As one of two police officers for a community of barely six hundred people in the middle of nowhere he didn´t usually have a lot of work on his hands, but the last week had been busier than usual: a thief making his rounds at a farmer´s market, two dogs and a cow going missing and a nearly escalated fight between two stall owners at the annual sweet corn fair a village over.

To finish today's shift off, he got a call around 8.30 pm, just when he was about to head home, about a breaking and entering on the Jones´property,. The totally shocked faces of the two teens from the local high school at being caught with their pants down were totally worth it, though, he thought with a chuckle.

Then again, he would be downright hypocritical to say that he never got into trouble back in the day. When there wasn´t a lot to do, one needed to get creative and he could still remember one or two Saturday nights that ended in a wild chase through the fields, Constable Higgins hot on their tails. He fell in love with Belinda, the Constable´s beautiful daughter, during their senior year and after she came home from college and he joined the ranks of the police he bought her a ring.

Nowadays they usually had their house to themselves once more, with their two daughters of to work in the city, but tonight they would sit together around the table again. Suzy had married Michael a little over a year ago and tonight his first grandchild would be half a year old, which is why his wife has invited them all over for dinner. Hannah´s girlfriend couldn´t get away from work at the moment, but apart from that, the family was together again and they were all just waiting for him.

With that in mind, he decided to take the short cut and turned of Main Street into a smaller country road.

It was bumpy and full of holes, running through the fields that surrounded the village, and soon enough the beam of his headlights was the only thing cutting through the darkness.

If it weren't for that, he would have nearly bumped into it. Behind a sharp turn the lights suddenly reflected on a shiny black surface. A sleek muscle car was driving slowly ahead of him, lights off, blending perfectly into the night. He needed to hit the brakes hard in order to avoid crashing into it.

 _What kind of an idiot drives out here with their lights off?_

The longer he watched, the more suspicious he became. The car was driving extremely slow, even considering the condition of the path and it seemed as if the driver couldn´t make up his mind on what side of the road he wanted to be, constantly swerving from left to right.

He was off duty and definitely didn´t want another thing to stop him from getting back home, but the way this guy was driving made it look like he could end up in the ditch next to the road any second now and that was what finally made him pull up next to him as soon as the road allowed it.

The darkness made it hard to make out the driver´s face, but apparently he was not alone: There were two dark shapes sitting in the front seats of the black car and when he motioned for them to stop they immediately jerked to a halt.

 _Well, that´s something at least. Here´s to hoping this is going to be quick_.

He stopped the police cruiser and reached for his flashlight before opening the door.

The two figures in the car hadn´t moved, but he could hear animated whispering that immediately cut of when they saw him approaching. He knocked on the driver´s window and after a second of hesitation, it was slowly rolled down.

"Alright, then, who do we have here?"

"Who wants to know that?"

The figure in the passenger seat answered, challenge obvious in his voice. His surprisingly young voice.

One glance inside with his flashlight revealed two kids shielding their eyes. The one that had spoken could be anything between fifteen and twenty and looked like this was nothing but a minor annoyance to him, but he would bet on his mama's grave that the boy on the driver´s seat wasn´t a day older than eleven and his hands were shaking.

"Officer Reynolds, Havenville Police department." He showed them his badge before he fixed them both with a stern look. "But I believe I asked you first."

The boys shared a glance before the older grudgingly answered: "I´m Dean, this is my brother Sam."

"So, Dean and Sam, you mind giving me a surname, showing me some ID?"

This time the younger one, Sam, spoke up. "It´s Winchester, but we don´t have our ID´s with us, Sir".

The kid´s hands had stopped shaking, but he could hear the worry behind his calm answer. He stared at the two boys, the younger sitting with his shoulders slightly hunched and the older glaring at him protectively and decided to try a different angle.

"That´s fine, don´t worry. How about you boys just tell me what you were doing out here so late?"

Again, the two brothers quickly shared a look before Dean answered: "Look, it´s been my brother´s birthday yesterday and ever since then he´s been pestering me about letting him try to drive the car, so I figured I could take him out here where he couldn´t kill anyone"

Sam threw his brother a withering look before he remembered what kind of a role he was supposed to be playing and nodded innocently. Jeffrey suppressed a grin. _Nice try, boys, but you´re playing with a master here. Aint no trick I haven´t tried myself before_.

"I see. Well then, happy birthday, Sam. How old´re you now?"

"Sixteen." The kid looked him straight in the eye, but he hesitated for one second too long.

 _Oh well_. This put him into an uncomfortable position. He didn´t believe them one word and what they had done here was technically illegal, but then again, most folks in the village learned to drive just like this in his time and it wasn´t like they had hurt anyone. The thing was, he didn´t want to leave them out here on their own.

"In that case I´m sure you won´t mind me calling your folks to check in with them?"

For a second the tough mask of the older boy slipped, revealing barely concealed panic, but then he regained control and answered coolly: " No problem. My dad´s number is 056249837."

 _Yeah, I bet it is_. "You guys know that I can´t just leave you out here without adult supervision, right?"

"I am an adult."

Dean raised his chin defiantly and Jeffrey couldn´t argue that there was something in his face that made him look way beyond his years. He really didn´t want to play the hard ass here, but the fact remained that neither boy had an ID to prove their statements and even though he really wanted to get this done with and go home, it didn´t sit right with him to just up and leave them.

"That´s what you say, son, and I would like to believe you, but as it is I still need the number of your Dad."

"Dean, maybe he´s already back and-"

"Shut it, Sammy, you know just as well as I…"

The brothers had turned towards each other, talking too softly for him to fully understand what they were saying but he was starting to become a little bit suspicious. _Did their old man just leave them alone?_

Finally, Dean straightened up and mumbled. "Dad´s number is 04527664365. But he´s on a business trip, so he might not pick up."

Jeffrey went around his car to grab his phone and started punching in the number. He held it to his ear and let it ring a few times, the brothers in front of him looking less confident with each second passing by.

"Looks like you´re right." Jeffrey ended the call. "What about your mom?"

"Mom´s dead" Sam answered, avoiding his eyes.

"But I´m sure Dad will look on his phone soon and call you back"

Dean sounded more desperate than convinced and he saw his hands twitching towards the key that was still in the ignition, as if he was seriously considering making a break for it. Whatever was going on with these kids, he would put an end to it now.

"Sam, would you please hand me your keys?" He held out his hand and Sam complied slowly, looking absolutely terrified.

"Are you going to arrest us now?"

Hating to be the one causing the terror in the kids eyes he softened his voice. "No, I´m not arresting you. I´m just going to take you with me to the station until we can clear up the situation with your father".

While Sam opened the door to get out of the car, the older boy was still sitting inside, not moving a muscle.

"Dean?" His brother turned and ducked back inside the car.

He couldn´t hear what was being said, but after a couple of seconds Dean joined him on the side of the road, stepping right into his face. "We come with you, but we´re only going together, you hear?" Dean hissed, eyes blazing fiercely.

He raised his hands in a placating gesture. "I´ve got no plan to separate you, son. This is just to protect you guys."

Dean rolled his eyes. "I can protect us." His voice was low, dead serious.

"I believe that you can." And even though there was something deeply wrong about that, he actually did. "But I´m afraid that you are my responsibility for now."

The older Winchester huffed but nodded before he turned around and motioned for Sam. "Come on, Squirt, looks like you´ll finally get your chance to ride in a police cruiser." He was smiling now, tone slightly teasing, but he didn´t have two younger sisters for nothing. He knew what Dean was doing and by the looks of it, Sam did as well, but he nevertheless gave his older brother a grin and complied.

As soon as both boys were buckled in the backseats, he wrote his wife a quick message.

 _Sorry, honey, but something turned up. Start eating and tell the kids I´ll be there as soon as I can._

They left the black Impala parked on the side of the road and slowly made their way back into town. The brothers seemed quiet, but from the wild looks he could see them passing each other in the rear-view mirror he assumed there was actually an intense discussion going on. Meanwhile, he had to consider his own options. If he couldn´t get a hold of a parent or legal supervisor of the kids he would have to call Youth services. Thing was, their next branch was in Bradford, a good sixty miles from here and they wouldn´t be here before midday tomorrow.

He was parking in front of the police station, lost in unpleasant thoughts, when his phone rang. The boys´ heads whipped around, staring at the device disbelievingly and even he startled at the sudden noise.

"Officer Reynolds?"

"This is John Winchester. Is this about my boys? Are they okay?" There was a gruff voice at the other end, equal parts suspicious and worried.

"Yes, Mr Winchester" He heard Dean audibly exhale. "My call concerned your sons, and yes, they are alright."

This time Winchester Senior huffed a breath of relief. "What kinda trouble they gotten themselves into, Officer?"

"I picked them up on the road driving a beauty of a Chevy without a license."

"Ah, I see. Mhm. Guess I should have expected that." It sounded like the man couldn´t quite decide whether to be angry or amused. "What happens now?"

"I have them with me at the Havenville police station. It´d be good if you´d come fetch them."

"Of course. I can be there in twenty minutes."

Jeffrey ended the call and gave both boys an encouraging smile. "Alright, you father ´s on his way to you up, so all of this´ll be over soon."

He got them both situated in the waiting room of the station, figuring there was no reason to believe they would make a break for it now, before fetching the necessary papers from his office. Coming back, he could hear the Winchester boys whisper animatedly.

"Told ya you shouldn´t worry so much."

"What, and trust our kind of luck? Also, easy for you to say, since Dad isn´t about to go down on your ass and ground you for the next year."

Jeffrey shook his head and chuckled to himself. _Oh the joys of adolescence_.

He re-entered the room and settled down at the desk to get a head start on the paperwork. The boys sat in silence, but it was obvious that Dean was getting more agitated by the minute.

As the doors finally opened, revealing a tall man with a gruff beard and a leather jacket, he basically jumped to attention, his little brother following straight.

The man cast his sons the kind of "We´ll talk later" glare that Jeffrey remembered all to well from his own child hood, before turning to him.

"John Winchester. Sorry for the trouble."

"That comes with the job, Mr Winchester." They shook hands.

"Like I already mentioned on the phone, I picked your sons up a little outside of town, driving your car-?"

Jeffrey waited until John had procured his driving licence and registration document out of the depths of his pockets.

"-which really is a beauty, by the way-"

The father nodded, tentatively smiling.

"-without a driver´s licence. Standard procedure for this would be a reprimand and a fee of a hundred and fifty Dollars."

John gave another curt nod, smile gone.

He turned away from Sam and Dean, forcing their father to follow his movements, before he continued softly. "As the case is, I think your boys have learned their lesson. Also, I would lie if I said I haven´t been accused of the same crime a couple times when I was their age and since no one got hurt I´d say we forget about the fee for now."

John stared at him as if he had grown a second head.

"On another note, I know it aint none of my business, but if I couldn´t have reached you I´d have been forced to keep your sons here overnight and bring Youth service into this."

He let the sentence hang and at first it looked like Mr. Winchester Senior was about to tell him where he could shove his opinions, mouth set in a thin line and eyes furious, but then his shoulders sagged.

"I know what you´re saying, Officer. God knows I wish it was different for my kids, but as it is-." John didn´t finish the sentence, but the regret in his voice didn´t leave room to doubt his sincerity. He threw a look over his shoulder to where Sam and Dean were sitting and trying to look like they didn´t do their best to hear what was being said.

"Your offer to forego the fee is, uuhm, very generous and-" He raised his voice slightly, making sure he could be heard in the whole room."I´m sure the boys won´t mind repaying you for your kindness."

He motioned for them to come closer and they stood beside them in a heartbeat.

"Dad, I can explain this, really, -"

"This is not Dean´s fault, honestly, I made him take me, he did nothing wrong, Dad-"

The brothers immediately started talking, both trying to take the fall for each other, until John raised his hand to interrupt them.

"That´s enough, boys."

He fixed them both with a stern glance. "I don´t care whose idea this was. What you did was highly irresponsible and could have harmed not only you but others, do you understand that?"

The brothers dropped their eyes. "Yessir."

"Can I trust you that this will never happen again?"

"Yessir."

John´s eyes softened. "You´re lucky that Officer Reynolds here is a gracious guy. He is willing to leave it at reprimanding the two of you."

Sam and Dean looked up disbelievingly, first at their father, then at Jeffrey.

"That is very kind of you, Sir." Sam smiled as if Jeffrey had just saved Christmas and even though Dean apparently shared a strong distrust towards forces of law enforcements with his father, he let himself add: "Thanks, man, I guess we owe you."

"I agree with you on that one, Dean." John´s voice had taken on a slightly mischievous undertone that had his sons immediately growing wary.

"I guess it would be a nice gesture of you to, say, wash Officer Reynolds car tomorrow as a sign of your gratitude. Would that be alright with you, Officer?"

Jeffrey thought of the many hours he´d spend mowing peoples´ lawns, carrying groceries and painting fences as ´punishment´ for his many wrongdoings as a kid, before he inclined his head in agreement.

"That sounds like an idea, Mr. Winchester. Are you boys free tomorrow around four?"

He received relieved smiles and eager nods as an answer, both brother apparently more than surprised they had come of the hook so easily.

"Alright, then, I guess I´ll be seeing you tomorrow."

He returned the car´s key to John before shaking hands, then turned around to clear his table while the Winchesters collected themselves.

"So, Sam, you drove the car?" He heard Winchester Senior ask in a low voice.

"Yes, dad." Sam responded, slightly apprehensive of where the conversation was going.

"Well then, Dean, how did he do?"

"Not bad for his first try, Dad .I showed him how to do a U-turn and he made it at the second try." Dean whispered, failing to keep the pride out of his voice.

"That´s my boy"

Pretending not to have heard the silent conversation, Jeffrey turned around to see John ruffling his youngest hair before he pushed open the station´s glass doors, leading his sons outside.

Smiling to himself he watched them getting into a black truck and pulling away in the night, thinking of the smell of corn fields, motor oil and gasoline and his father´s voice rumbling "Good job, son"

Then he picked up his keys and locked the front door and walked the few feet down to his car to drive home.

 _Honey, I´m on my way_.

* * *

 **And there you have it. Updates might come a bit slower now, since this chapter was the last I had finished, but I have a couple others in my head already.**

 **Cheers!**


	6. Caveman

**Hey everybody:)**

 **This one´s for Dragonsrule18, who requested a story from the POV of someone the Winchesters save. Hope you like this, dear:)**

 **Thanks to everyone who reads this and to Soncnica for making this readable. All remaining mistakes are mine.**

 **In my head, this is set in the early season, but I guess it could be at any time during the show.**

 **Warnings for a little bit of swearing and a little bit of puke.**

 **That being said, enjoy;)**

* * *

 _Drip, drip, drip. Dripdrip, drip_.

When I first got here, I tried counting the drops. Had to stop after a few hours because it honest to God drove me I try to block them out, but that´s pretty difficult when they´re the only damn sound in this hell hole.

It´s some sort of a cave, by the looks of it. I can see the entrance where I figure I got dragged through on the right, maybe ten feet away from me. To the other side the cave stretches on into darkness. I have no clue how big it really is, but there has to be some sort of water source in the ongoing blackness, because that´s where the dripping is coming from.

 _Drip. Dripdrip. Drip_.

Truth is, I rather count the drops than think about anything else. For example, who kidnapped and shackled me to a friggin´ wall in a cave. Why? Or rather, what for? And what the hell happened to the poor suckers that had been chained to the opposite wall?

At first I thought I might not have been alone in here. There is another iron ring hammered into the stone opposite me, but the respective shackles are abandoned. At least right now. The dim light illuminating my current living space is just bright enough for me to see speckles of old blood and what I am desperately trying to tell myself are not human bones.

Who am I kidding? I´m screwed and I know it.

* * *

I´ve got no idea how long it´s been. The semi-darkness here never changes, the only source of light being the entrance of the cave. Or the part of the cave I´m kept in, anyway. It´s a dim shimmer, speaking of something bright even further away, but I can´t help to be grateful for it. There´s no doubt I´d already be bat-shit-crazy right now if I had to sit in complete darkness. Not that I´m not slowly getting there anyway, but small blessings and all that.

After I woke up here, I spend hours wracking my brain, trying to remember the details of the old hiking map grandpa kept in his desk drawers, digging through my memory for all the caves I knew of in the hills surrounding Julesburg. There where quite a few, considering the town was situated in the Rocky´s, but I took pride in knowing nearly all of them. I used to be a boy scout, after all, and being an only child left me with many long afternoons spend exploring the woods. This isn´t like any cave I ever discovered, of that at least I am sure. Could mean there are others close to my hometown that neither I nor anyone I know ever heard of, or that whatever brought me here took me even further away. What a comforting thought.

What´s really strange is that I´ve no memory whatsoever of how I got here. One second I´d d been working in the garage, fixing up a Honda that´s been brought in that morning and the next I woke up in here, feeling like I´d just come off a three day bender. Course, at first I screamed my head off for a while, but all that got me´d been a sore throat and ringing ears. I must have fallen asleep again eventually, because when I woke up there´d been a bottle of water and an old roll on the floor next to me and I wasted my first waking minutes on a minor meltdown because, apparently, someone came in here, close enough to put it next to me, without me even noticing. Took me awhile to figure out that this is how it would work. I would get water and something resembling food, but only while I was out for the count. And only the real thing, too. I tried faking at first, but whoever is watching me didn´t buy it.

* * *

Needless to say, I´ve a lot of time to think down here. I like to imagine that Sheriff Dawson already assembled the search parties, that they are out there somehwere looking for me. I´ve known this guy since I was about knee-high and I can basically see him standing in the town hall gathering everyone together. Hope he´s not too worried. Ever since my folks died, he thinks he´s responsible for me, checking in every other week. I keep telling him I´m good and going on thirty and what not, but it´s kinda nice, anyway.

Then I think of Tommy. My parents got him a couple years before they died, an energetic puppy chewing his way through the shoes of the family. There are streaks of grey in his fur nowadays, but he´s still bouncing up and down in happy excitement every time I come home in the evening. Hope someone takes care of him while I´m gone. Poor fellow probably stood behind the door howling when I didn´t come back however many days ago. The thought makes my heart clench and I loose myself in the sound of the drops once more.

* * *

I just put half of today's (or tonight´s. Who knows?) mouldy bread back to save for later when I hear it.

Footsteps.

Someone's coming.

At first, I´m excited. The search party, finally!

But nobody´s calling out my name and it sounds like there is just one pair of feet approaching and what if this is it? What if this is the guy that brought me here and now he´s coming to finish what he started?

After a second of being literally frozen with panic, I try to scramble as far back into the darkness as the chains allow me, because there is absolutely nothing else I can do. Trussed up as I am, there´s no way I can fight and nothing I could use as a weapon. I pull my knees up to my chest, hands shaking, and I don´t want to look. I don´t want to die, not now please, please no.

Despite that, I can´t take my eyes of the entrance as the steps come closer and closer. If this is my end, I guess I´ll have to look it in the face.

My breath hitches in my throat as I see something step around the corner.

Or, more like two somethings.

One figure is wearing a long dark coat, the shadows hiding its face, but for a second I could have sworn it looked like Harry Marlow, the owner of the only gas station in town. The thing that sorta maybe a little bit looks like Harry Marlow-and what the fuck is up with that- drags the other thing/person along until it unceremoniously drops it on the floor next to the other iron ring in the wall. The thing goes down like a rock, groaning when it hits the ground and that, at least, sounds like it´s human. With a couple of swift movements, the cloaked figure chains the person up and then, without sparing him or me another glance, leaves the room.

I stay in my corner, staring blankly at what upon closer inspection kinda looks like a dude that went three rounds with a price boxer and lost and can´t get past the OHMYGODWHATTHEFUCK that is currently occupying every bit of my consciousness.

The guy groans again, struggling to get his arms under himself and tries to sit up from where he had been dumped on the ground. Tries, being the operative term, because he only gets halfway there before his arms collapse under him again.

"Uhhm, hey?" I try, because what the hell do you say in a situation like this? How´re you doing would seem a bit cynical and I´m in no position to talk about the weather here.

The guy flinches and turns his head painstakingly slowly in my direction, squinting as if he only now realizes he´s not alone.

"`llo" He mumbles, grimaces, spits some blood.

"Hey. Re you k?" He tries again.

It takes me awhile to understand what he´s asking and not just because he´s still slurring his words like dad after his third whiskey. He´s seriously asking me if I´m okay?

"Dude, I think you should be a little more concerned about yourself right now."

The man makes a vague motion with his hand that I interpret as _doesn´t matter_ and gives sitting up another try. This time he makes it, leaning back against the wall with a pained grunt and I flinch in sympathy at the damage I can fully see now. His lip is split and bloody, his right eye swollen shut and there´s a long gash under his hairline that is still bleeding lazily.

It seems like sitting up has already cost him all his energy. He sits with his head tipped back, breathing heavily and growing paler by the second.

Then he swallows hard, squeezes out a "Man, `m so sorry for this" between clenched teeth and lurches away from the wall, heaving.

I close my eyes and try to block out the sound of gagging followed by liquid hitting the ground and the smell as my own stomach threatens to turn in sympathy. I´m no delicate flower by any means, but whenever I hear someone puking their guts up, I´m usually not far behind. Eventually, I hear him collapse back into the wall with a moan.

"You okay?" Still a dumb question, but I do feel bad for him. I pick up my water bottle and roll it over.

"Getting there, I think." He picks up the bottle.

"Thanks." He rinses, takes a drink and rolls it back to me, already looking a lot more lucid than a couple minutes ago.

"You are Roger Hamilton, right?"

"How do you know that?" I ask, but in all honesty, I don´t really care, because God, it feels good to talk to another person again.

"I´m part of the search groups looking for you."

It´s not like I ever really thought nobody is going to notice I´m gone, but hearing that they are indeed searching for me makes all of this almost bearable.

"By the way, I´m Sam."

The guy, who´s apparently named Sam, continues and how come he is not at all freaked out by this? My first instinct is to ask him exactly that, but I eventually settle for something slightly less hysteric. "Looks like the whole searching-thing didn´t go too well for you."

I´m trying for sarcastic and confident, even though that is about as far from how I feel as I can get, mainly because I hope that will stop me from starting to scream WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON at my fellow captive.

Said captive just gives me a smile that ends up looking more than a little creepy on his deranged face. "Yeah, I guess you got a point." With that, he settles back into the wall, looking completely unconcerned.

"And that doesn´t bother you at all?!"

Apparently, I hadn´t been as good at hiding my panic as I thought, because Sam manages to morph his features into something that looks genuinely sympathetic, despite the blood slowly running down his temple and the flecks of drying vomit on his shirt.

"No, Mr. Hamilton, I´m not worried because I know that my broth- that everyone out there is doing everything they can to get us out."

"Call me Roger" Mr. Hamilton was my father and no matter how old I get, I´ll never get used to being called that.

Sam nods and something else suddenly occurs to me.

"You´re not from around here, are you? Never seen you before."

Julesburg is a relatively small community and it´s not like we´re some kind of tourists´ paradise, so new faces usually make the gossiping rounds quite quickly.

"No, I am on a road trip with my brother and we passed through town shortly after you went missing."

"And just signed up to trudge through the hills in the middle of November for some stranger?" I can´t keep the doubt out of my voice, but Sam just shrugs.

"Yeah. Well, I guess we´re not really the type to sit by and watch."

I nearly say "Look where that got you", but apparently this dude really got himself into this to help, even though he doesn´t even know me, and that´s actually so nice that I don´t have the heart.

Instead I ask the question that I didn´t dare to ask yet because some part of my subconscious is telling me that it might be better not to know.

"Sam, do you have any idea who brought you here? What all of this is about?"

He looks at me with an unreadable expression for long enough that the answer can impossibly be no. It feels as if he looks right through me, searching for something I can´t fathom and, for some reason, it makes me nervous. I tend to chatter when I´m nervous.

"Because, honestly, I got no clue and I don´t even know how long I´ve been here and this, this thing, I swear it looked like Harry Marlow from the gas station-"

Sam leans forward, rattling the chains as he clasps his hands together and I stop mid-sentence, because all of a sudden he looks dead serious. Literally. And considering our current situation that can only mean I won´t like what he´s about to tell me.

"Roger, I swear I´m not making fun of you, ok? Just, hear me out. What brought both of us here looks like Harry Marlow, because it can look like anyone it wants. It´s a creature known as a shapeshifter."

Sam stops, probably because he correctly reads the expression on my face as what-the-fuck.

" A shapeshifter. Are you on drugs?" Because seriously?

"No, I´m afraid I´m serious, Look, I know this sounds insane, but, considering the circumstances, give me the benefit of the doubt."

I nod, mostly because I´m still too gobsmacked to talk.

"This particular shifter is fairly old, as far as we know going back into the early twentieth century. It never got caught because it kept under the radar for a very long time, only changing shape if his current impersonation threatened to be found out."

"And now it decided to borrow Marlow´s face for...what exactly?" I ask, mainly because that seems to be the easiest question to ask and because I don´t want to seriously consider anything else the guy just said.

"We figured out the shifter mainly just wanted to stay undetected and that´s why he would take the form of people with no strings attached, no family, few friends, mostly in remote areas like this, so no one ever noticed the change."

"And two exactly identical people running around never put anyone off?"

Sam grimaced. "No, because the shifter would kill the _original_ he was copying."

I let that sink in. I want to call bull shit, more than I ever wanted to do anything in my life, but Sam looks so fucking sincere and apologetic and I _am_ currently chained up in a secret cave in the mountains, so, who knows?

But wait. "Does that mean Harry Marlow´s dead?"

Sam cranks the apology in his eyes up another notch. "I´m afraid so. The body was found this morning in the river."

I close my eyes because they suddenly start burning. I didn´t even know the guy that well, but this is all so fucked up and I don´t want to hear about shapeshifters and bodies for God´s sake. I want to be home, with my dog and my garage and fresh air and sunlight and-

"Hey, you ok?"

I´m laughing before I can stop myself, but it sounds ugly even to my own ears. "Sure, I´m fine. Just another day at the office."

I hear chains rattle and when I open my eyes I see Sam on his knees, dropping his hand as he realizes he can´t come close enough to place it on my shoulder.

"I´m sorry. Really."

"It´s okay. Not like it´s your fault." I run a hand down my face.

"Okay, say I believe you." Because it looks like I don´t really have another choice here.

"Why´re we here if the shifter already has his original?"

"This is what confused us as well. My best guess is that the shifter realized that Harry Marlow wasn´t the ideal choice because he knew too many people in town. Or maybe because it became clear that the way it disposed of the body was too risky. And then it took you… " He doesn´t finish the sentence but he doesn't have to.

"It figured I fit its agenda perfectly. Small town loner, no family. People would search for a couple a´days and then forget about me. But why bother with letting me live?" Even I´m surprised at how bitter that sounds.

"It probably planned to let you go if everything went to shit, in order to blur its trail. But listen, both you and the shifter got something wrong."

Sam waits until I meet his gaze.

"The whole town is out there searching for you. For five days. Sheriff Dawson is keeping everything together and they are not going to stop. They are going to find you. Us."

My eyes are burning again, but for a different reason. I clear my throat. "And you got captured because…?"

"I guess I just got too close to its hiding place. Our group split up and the shifter was not too happy about the intrusion." He smiles self-depreciatingly. "But that will give Dean a hint where they have to look."

I raise my eyebrows. "Dean?"

"He´s the brother I mentioned"

"And how do you know he won´t fall in the same trap as we did?"

"Because he´s too smart for that. Look, this, this whole fighting-monsters-thing, it´s kinda what we do."

"That´s one hell of a job."

Sam laughs. "Yeah, you could say that. But I guess it´s not without it´s perks."

"Please tell me unicorns are a thing."

Apparently, they are not. But, according to Sam, werewolfs, vampires, wendigos, poltergeists and demons are.

We sit, facing each other in the semi-darkness and I ask and Sam tells and the part of my brain that kept yelling "this can´t be right" eventually shuts up as he paints me a picture of a childhood on the road, learning about the things in the night from a father holding a shot gun and living in every sane person´s nightmare ever since. Yet, the way he speaks about it, it doesn´t even sound so bad.

He tells me about the things he´s seen by the side of the road, the places he´s been and the people he´s met on the way. And he tells me about his brother Dean, who taught him how to drive a car and hold a gun and who is the reason why he doesn´t even has the slightest doubt that we are going to be saved. I guess his faith is catching, because even though I have never met this Dean, I begin to believe we are really going to get out of this alive.

* * *

I dream of monsters and I wake to shouting.

For a second, I let myself believe that all of this had just been a nightmare, but then the cave comes back into focus. Sam sits on his haunches, hands clenched into fists, eyes never wavering from the entrance as the sounds of a commotion draw closer.

"What`s going on?"

There is a pained grunt, the sound of flesh hitting flesh and Sam winces.

"Looks like Dean found us." From his position he has a better view of the entrance and keeps trying to lean further forward

"Can you see anything?"

He shakes his head, bites his lip.

There´s a loud thump, as if something heavy hit the ground. Then, silence

"Dean?"

 _Dean, Deandean_ echoes through the cave. No answer.

"Dean, you okay?" Sam throws himself against the chains and I don´t need to tell him that it´s useless, because the look on his face says he´s already figured that out and decided not to give a damn.

"Dean?" Hope is warring with desperation in his voice as he tries again and again. I sit in silence, watching him struggle and for a second I forget that I´m most likely going to die here because right now, my heart breaks for him. I never had a brother and if that means never having to witness him die, I think I´m glad for it.

Sam pulls at the chains one last time before he sinks back down, hides his face in his hands. I´ve never felt so hopeless before.

Then, footsteps.

Sam drops his hands and when he looks at me, I barely recognize him.

"We´re not going down without a fight, you hear?"

I look back at him, mouth drawn into a thin line, eyes blazing with untamed fury and if I ever had any doubt that this man is a fighter, it´s gone now. I nod, trying to prepare myself for what´s about to happen but all I can think is that this just cannot be the end.

The footsteps draw closer, Sam raises up on his feet as far as the chains allow him, fists raised and I try to mirror his stance.

A tall shape emerges from the shadows and Sam utters something between a huff and a sob, before he lets his hands fall.

"Oh my God, Dean!"

"Didn´t I teach you better than that, Sammy? What tells you I´m not the shifter?"

Sam drops back on his haunches, smiles shakily. "They never really get you right."

The shape comes closer and now I can also see that it has no resemblance with Harry Marlow in any way. It´s a tall guy, covered in mud and God knows what and carrying a bloodied knife. I kinda want to cry in relief right now.

I mentally backtrack a bit as the guy proceeds to take the knife, wipe it clean on his pants and cut himself in the palm.

"Still never hurts to check:" He chides teasingly, but the way he smiles at Sam leaves no room for any real disapproval.

Sam laughs, shakes his head. "Roger, meet Dean."

"Hey. Thanks for, you know, rescuing us." I am long past caring if I come across as an idiot.

Dean doesn´t seem to care either. "You can thank me after I get those chains off of you."

He drops down next to his brother, rooting around in his pockets with his uninjured hand until he comes up with a lock pick.

"Jeez, that bastard really did a number on your face." I can hear Dean mumble as he gets to work on Sam´s chains.

"I think I´ll live."

"Yeah, I was afraid you´d say that."

I sit there, listening to them talk to each other, asking, teasing, worrying. I am glad that they pay me no mind for the moment because I´m still busy processing that, apparently, I´m not going to die just yet.

Dean slowly works his way through our chains until all that remains are the marks on my wrists. He offers me a hand and I gladly take it, my legs stiff after days of involuntary sitting.

"Your folks in town are waiting, so I´d say we get going"

So, maybe I hugged this stranger right then and there, getting shifter blood all over myself. Who´s going to blame me?

* * *

 **Alright that´s it for now. Let me know what you think;)**


	7. The Winchester special

**Hey folks:)**

 **You didn´t think I´d given up on this, did you?**

 **Some people asked me to bring characters from previous chapters back and since that´s something I already thought about doing anyway, I happily complied. But, despite my enthusiam, this chapter was pretty defiant in it´s insistence to make me miserable, which is why it took me so long to finish it.**

 **I hope you can forgive me:)**

 **As always, I don´t own them, thanks to my awesome(!) beta soncnica and all remaining mistakes are mine.**

 **Warnings: Canonical temporary character death(this is Supernatural, after all:))**

* * *

"You sure you don´t want me to stay?" Chris asked, head tilted, towel still in his right hand. And she knew he would, too, if only she said the word.

"Yes, I´m sure. You go to your party and I´ll close up here in an hour, tops." Greta smiled as her young colleague turned around and hung the towel back on the rack.

"Thanks, Greta. Well then, see you tomorrow."

She looked after him as he walked past her, took his coat and stepped out into the street. Chris´s been working for her for the last four years and she couldn´t have found a more responsible and diligent assistant. What started as a part-time thing slowly evolved into him doing more and more of the planning, organising and calculating and she was happy to sit back and let him.

Lost in thought, she walked back into the main room, eyes wandering over the now-empty tables. _This place will be in good hands with him_.

She hadn´t told him yet, but she was going towards seventy quicker than she liked and slowly came around to the idea that it might be time to step down. Part of her hated the thought, because this was her life, had been for nearly fifty years, and she always liked to think she´d just drop dead behind the counter one day.

But the other part had a photograph of her first grandchild sitting on her nightstand and looked at it every night before she went to sleep. Maybe she´d move over. Cathy said she could use the help and she would finally live near her family again. She couldn´t really picture herself sitting in a rocking chair knitting sweaters just yet, but she could see herself holding little Tommy in her arms, reading him stories, seeing him grow up.

After a look out into the grey autumn night, she decided she might as well get started on cleaning up. Slowly moving from table to table she picked up burnt-down candles, used napkins and forgotten menus. Chris had convinced her last spring to change the design and even though it took her some time to warm up to the idea, she had to admit he really knew what he was doing. While most of her offers got new names now, there was one she insisted on keeping: One coffee and a blueberry muffin, the Winchester special. Chris didn´t know the whole story and she never told him, because… Well, probably because she was getting sentimental in her old age and because even she didn´t really know what happened and because on evenings like this, she still missed them.

As she finished up with the last table the doorbell rung and she allowed herself to believe for a second that she´d turn around to John´s face, that she´d see Sam coming through the door. It was a hope she´d never completely given up on, however foolish it was and there was the familiar pang of disappointment when she saw a stranger walking towards the register.

"Good evening, how can I help you?"

The man turned around and looked at her with searching eyes. Despite his tall stance and broad shoulders, he somehow reminded her of a boy who got lost on his way home.

"Uhm, sorry to bother you, but are you Greta Williams?"

He pulled his lower lip between his teeth and shifted from one foot to the other as though he was still internally debating whether turning around and leaving might be the better course of action.

After taking a closer look, she quickly came to the conclusion that she´d never met this man before. _Well_ , _this could be interesting_.

"Yes, dear, that would be me."

She walked up to him, offering a reassuring smile and he returned it with a crooked grin, making a visible effort to relax his shoulders.

"I presume you´re not here for my coffee, even though you´re welcome to have one if you like."

He nodded gratefully and she pointed him to one of the tables in the corner. After a second's hesitation, she poured two cups and made her way over to his table.

"There you go." She settled into the chair opposite his. "So, how can I help you?"

The man took a sip from his coffee, closing his eyes in appreciation and obviously doing what he could to avoid having to answer immediately. She didn´t mind and simply waited patiently, hands intertwined on the tabletop.

Eventually, he sat the cup down and mirrored her position, fingers pressed together until his fingertips went white.

"Look, this might come a bit out of nowhere, but did you know a Sam Winchester?"

The man dropped his eyes at the end of the question, his voice strained and for a second, she was eight years younger, sitting at this exact table with the man she´d later know as John Winchester asking just this question.

Now it was her turn to take a drink from her cup and she suddenly found herself wishing it was something stronger. Because as much as she had hoped to hear from them, the way this man looked at her made it clear that he didn´t come with good news.

"Who wants to know that?"

"I´m Dean Winchester. I`m his brother."

She leaned back in her chair and took a closer look at the man, still hearing Sam´s voice clearly in her head when she thought of the few times he´d spoken about his family. He never said it out loud, but it was obvious to anyone with ears that he´d adored his older brother and she´d never forgotten the night he told her with tears running down his face how much he missed him.

The man in front of her had few in common with Sam in terms of looks, but there was something in his face, in his eyes, in the way he held himself that was so _Sam_ that she´d no doubt they were, indeed, brothers.

"Well then. Yes. I know Sam. He used to work for me a couple years back."

Dean nodded slowly as if he already knew that but remained silent otherwise, listlessly fiddling with the tablecloth. She tried to ignore the growing feeling of dread in her stomach and reached for her cup again. There was clearly something he wanted to say but didn´t seem to find the words, but eventually she couldn´t stand the silence anymore.

"May I ask what brings you here?" She had to force the words out because deep down she feared that she really didn´t want to hear his answer.

Dean closed his eyes, visibly trying to compose himself before he started speaking in a monotone voice.

"My brother, Sam, he-he´s gone." He swallowed heavily. "It´s been over three months now and I-I don´t know."

He clenched his fingers into fists on the table but she could hardly hear what he said over the sudden roaring in her ears.

"He told me once that he worked in a café while he was in school and how much he liked it there and-well, we don´t have many friends, exactly, and I recalled him talking about you and I thought if I could find you, I-", he stopped mid-sentence, dropping his hands to his knees. "I don´t even know what I thought."

He looked away from her, out of the window and his face slowly grew blurry as tears started to run down her cheeks.

 _He can´t be dead. He just can´t._

She wanted to scream, to ask how and why and why and damn why, but she didn´t. Because ultimately, it didn´t matter.

Over the years, she kept on wondering what had happened to the Winchesters after that fire. Sure, sometimes she got mad that Sam never bothered to let her know, sometimes that in itself seemed so unlike the boy she knew that she felt convinced he had to be dead, but mostly she liked to picture them happily living their lives somewhere out there. Apparently, they didn´t.

She closed her eyes against the burning tears and tried to remember Sam Winchester. How he helped her pick up her decorations on the day they met, how he told her about this interesting old law he´d learned everything about in class, how he said Jessica´s name. But after half a decade her memories were slowly growing hazy, cruelly slipping through her fingers whenever she tried to bring them into focus.

"I´m sorry to bother you with this. I should go."

She forced her eyes open and placed a resolute hand on Dean´s shoulder as he was about to get up.

"Nonsense."

He let himself be pushed down without resistance and she took her hand back to resolutely wipe her eyes.

"I´m glad you told me" Maybe not right now, but she´d get there eventually. Pretty lies were still lies, after all.

Dean nodded slowly, eyes still far away.

"Yeah well. I´m sorry, anyway."

"Yes. Me too."

They sat together like this, sorrowful silence filling the room, until the streetlights flickered to life outside the window.

"Could you tell me about Sam?"

Dean looked up at her with eyes that were too bright and her mouth opened on its own accord, the words spilling out just like they came to mind. Dean hung on her lips like he was soaking up every syllable and she let what memories she had overtake her as if her words could bring Sam back to life if she just wanted it enough.

"Sam could recite all the offers on the card backwards about three weeks in. He just came in, said he couldn´t sleep last night and then he delivered the whole thing without mistake."

"I remember Mrs. Hennings had taken a real shining to the poor guy, somehow always finding a way to trap him in endless conversations about her cats."

"Your brother got quite skilled in the kitchen over time, but somehow he couldn't fry eggs to save his life."

It took a while for Dean to smile at the right places, but eventually, he did, even giving her a couple of glimpses into the life he had lived with his brother after the fire. Dean told her that he and Sam have been to every road side attraction thinkable, except the world´s largest ball of twine and that Sam always jokingly bugged him about it until Dean made it a game to always find a route to avoid that spot.

"He was smart, of course, I just felt he sometimes forgot that. One time the geek´d been so busy with his laptop that he forgot to fill up the car and guess who had to walk eight miles through the snow that night?" he shock his head with a little grin.

The grin softened to a smile as he remembered Sam spotting an old dog by the side of the highway and insisted on driving it to the shelter in the next town, getting mud all over the front seat.

"I mean, it wasn´t always easy. We´d fight and he drove me crazy more times than I can count, but in the end- in the end he saved me. More than just me. And I never got to thank him for that."

At the end, Dean spoke more to himself than to her. He didn´t elaborate and she didn´t ask, just took in his words and believed them enough for the details to be unimportant, the way she always did with the Winchesters.

By the time Greta remembered her coffee cup its contents had long gone cold.

"I knew your father, back then"

She placed the rum she normally used for baking on the table between them. Dean looked up at her in surprise before slowly unscrewing the bottle.

"I knew he went to Stanford to see Sammy every now and then. These two always were way too stubborn for their own good." He mumbled with the resignation of a man who´d already said or thought the same thing a thousand times over, a resignation that stopped her from asking why he talked in past tense about both of them, because it told her all there was to know. And yet she told him about John Winchester´s visits over the years and he never interrupted, clinging to his half-full glass of rum like a lifeline.

"If he would´ve just said something, the goddamn idiot! If they both would´ve shut the hell up and listen to each other just one fucking time-"

Dean emptied his glass in one gulp and let it drop back on the table with just enough force for it to shatter in a thousand tiny pieces. He numbly looked at the shards of glass covering the tablecloth, blood starting to run from his palm where he cut himself and she hurried away to get him a towel before he could apologize, because there was no way she wouldn´t start crying the moment he did.

When she came back into the room he hadn´t moved, the blood from his hand slowly forming a small puddle on the table. He didn´t react when she held the towel out to him. She doubted he could even properly see her over the tears flowing freely from his eyes, his shoulders shaking just the slightest bit and so she dropped down beside him, pressing the cloth to the wound and trying not to watch while he slowly fell apart.

By the time the bleeding stopped he wasn´t shaking anymore and his eyes were dry so she took him by the shoulder to guide him to the small couch in the backroom. He looked like he wanted to protest but didn´t, because he couldn´t be bothered to care all that much and stumbled along. She heaved a few old folders and dirty tablecloths out of the way and Dean just let himself be pushed down gently, body going limp as soon as his knees touched the edge of the couch.

He looked up at her, then, eyes shining with weariness deeper than sleep could ever touch. "Dad´d your address in his wallet the day he died. That´s how I found ya", he mumbled softly, then he was out, almost looking like a corpse in the pale moonlight that shone through the window and all that was left for her to do was cover him with the spare blanket and cry for two friends she´d never see again.

* * *

Greta woke up because the sun was shining in her face and she relished it for about three seconds until the pain in her back reminded her where she was. She slowly raised her head, her hand automatically raising to her neck in a vain attempt to ease the tension that came from spending a night sleeping with her head on a coffee table. One look outside assured her that it was early still, the sun just barely peeking over the horizon and she allowed herself another three minutes to collect herself. Eventually, she went over to the counter and started the coffee machine. The familiar sounds as it rattled to life was strangely comforting after everything that went down last night.

She poured herself a cup, then picked up a second. After dangling it in her hand for a moment she put it away again, because the man who had slept in her backroom was a Winchester. For all she knew, he would be long gone by now.

But, if anything, yesterday night had proven once more that she did not know the Winchesters as well as she liked to think, if she ever knew them at all, and so she shouldnt have been all that surprised to see Dean standing beside the couch, carefully folding the blanket she´d draped over him.

It was obvious he had noticed her standing in the door frame, but he didn´t look up. Only after placing everything she had thoughtlessly shoved aside back on the couch he straightened and slowly walked towards her.

"Thank you." The weariness was still there, but for the moment ít was overcome by a sincerity that raised the hairs on her arms. "For this, but, you know, more for what you did for Sam. Thank you."

He hesitated a moment, then gently took her hand in his and held it, his grip strong.

She failed to get words past the sudden lump in her throat, but he didn´t seem to expect an answer anyway. He gave her hand one last squeeze and turned around, walked past her, through the main room and out of the door. She was still standing wordlessly in the door frame by the time she heard the familiar roar of the black car that John used to love.

* * *

 _So, it´s not in the cupboard and not on the kitchen shelf and not between the old novels and not in the bathtub. Where for God´s sake did I put it?!_

Greta made another 360, eyes scanning over the empty shelves and packed boxes. Cathy wanted to come down tomorrow, help her pack up the last of her belongings and take her to the east coast, to a small but cozy apartment just a block down from her so they would be back just in time to celebrate Tommy´s third birthday.

 _But there´s no way I´ll leave without grandma´s recipes!_

After having spent the entire morning searching for the little blue folder full of handwritten pages she had to admit that she had no clue where she left it. With an exhausted sigh she let herself drop into her armchair, the only piece of furniture left in the living room, and tried to recall where she´d last seen it.

 _Mhh, if memory serves I used it just last month for the banana split cake I made for Chris´s birthday. Wait, didn´t he say he wanted to try that one at the shop for the new menu? Yes, that must be it!_

With that realization her energy returned and she stemmed herself up from the armchair and grabbed for her coat. The café was just a five minute walk from what´s been her home for the longest time and she enjoyed the brisk winter air as she strolled down the sidewalks. She hadn´t been there all that often this last month. Chris had taken over the business a little over a year ago and while she still helped out in the beginning, she had eventually forced herself to give him a little more space and really focus on the move she was about to undertake. She´d lie if she´d say it had been easy, but she´d managed somehow and even though seeing the familiar sign appear on the end of the street still made her heart clench a little in well-earned nostalgia, she was beginning to look forward to living with her family.

The winter season was slightly less busy because most of the tourists were gone, but the students still needed their morning dose of caffeine and a sandwich for the way, so she was slightly surprised to look through the glass windows and only see two costumers waiting.

 _Well, the midday rush is gonna be here soon enough_.

The bell rang when she opened the door and Chris spotted her with a smile.

"Ah Greta, good that you´re here. These two have asked for you."

At his words the men at the counter turned around and for about one heartbeat, everything was perfectly still.

"Oh my goodness, are you trying to bring me into an early grave?!"

They looked slightly different than when she last saw them, Sam especially, but there was no mistaking who was standing in front of her. Both men winced slightly, apology written all over their faces but, right now, Greta couldn´t care less.

She crossed the room between them with five quick steps and did what she had never thought she´d get a chance to do. She hugged Sam. He seemed a bit surprised at her reaction at first, but as soon as he was convinced that she wouldn´t start to rip his head of any second he returned the hug so fiercely she had trouble breathing.

"It´s good to see you." He mumbled from where his head towered above her and she could hear the words vibrate in his chest.

"I could say the same to you, boy", she answered, stepping back a little to look up at him. "Good for you that I don`t have the ladder I´d need to slap you right now." His eyes clouded over with guilt and she was laughing and crying and before he could say anything else, she just hugged him again. "God, I was kidding."

After she released him the second time she turned around to Dean, who had taken a polite half-step back and didn´t hesitate to hug him as well. She had only seen him that one time, a little over a year ago now, and yet she could see how different he was, all traces of the broken man he´d been washed away as he smiled at her.

"Look, I get that this is all a bit confusing-"

"Greta, I can explain what happened, I´m so sorry that I didn´t do it earlier -"

"-but it´s kinda a very long story and-"

Greta held up her hand and both brothers stopped mid-sentence.

"And I´m sure you will tell it to me. But I suggest we sit down for that part. You boys have a few minutes to drink coffee with an old lady?"

They nodded and so she turned around to Chris, one arm one the counter. "Three times the Winchester special, please."

* * *

 **And there you have it. After writing "Blueberry muffins" I kinda felt like Greta deserved a happier ending and so it was really satisfying for me to write this little thing.**

 **Let me know what you think:)**


	8. In the beginning

**Hey folks:)**

 **This one is a little shorter than the others, but it wanted to be written anyway and who am I to object to that:)**

 **As always, thanks to my beta soncnica and to all you guys reading and reviewing this, you rock:)**

 **All remaining mistakes are mine, alas the Supernatural characters are not.**

 **Warnings: Here be serious fluff. Proceed at own risk.**

* * *

"Daddy, when´re they gonna let us in?"

"Relax, tiger, they´ll get us as soon as Mom and your little brother are ready."

The youngster huffed and crossed his arms, apparently not satisfied with the answer. Vera smiled to herself. She was in the last few minutes of her shift, working the reception desk, and she had to ask the little boy and his father to wait a few more minutes until her colleagues finished their check-up on the mother and her baby.

Mary Winchester had been admitted two days ago. She walked in with her suitcase in hand, her husband close behind and calmly let herself be wheeled away. Vera had been working the night shift that day and so she was one of the nurses who stayed with Mary through eight hard hours of delivering her baby. As had her husband and Vera had to admit that she´d been a little bit impressed. She´d seen her fair share of children come into this world in her ten years as a nurse and so far, few parents-to-be had handled it all as well as the Winchesters. Mary was calm and determined, her husband caring and gentle, holding her hand until his fingertips went white and apparently not at all bothered by the bloody details of childbirth. Even considering this was their second child Vera had marvelled at how well everything went.

She finished up her report for the nightshift as her mind wandered back to the moment the youngest Winchester entered the world. It was a boy, a little smaller than he should be at his age but healthy otherwise, screaming into the doctor´s face until he carefully placed him in his mother´s arms. She just looked at him, her eyes filling up and for a second, Vera couldn´t tell if it was from joy or sadness. Then she smiled, her whole face lightening up and the baby stopped crying to look up to her.

 _Those people selling the hallmark cards are onto something when they say that it´s moments like that that made this job worthwhile_.

"Daddy, can we go yet?"

The child that, according to Mary´s file, went by the name of Dean, was obviously impatient to see the new addition to his family. The father sighed good-naturedly and ruffled his son´s hair.

"I´m afraid not, kiddo. I´ve to ask you to be patient for a little longer."

The boy gave a long suffering sigh and dropped his chin in his hands in a patented expression of utter boredom. A few seconds ticked by before he turned back to his father, frowning all of a sudden.

"Does that mean something´s wrong with Mom?"

"No, Dean, everything´s fine. I promise." The kid held his father´s gaze until he seemed to find what he´d been looking for and leaned back in his chair in relief.

"So, what does he look like?"

"I already told you, like, a million times." Winchester senior laughed, but Dean was unperturbed and turned big pleading eyes on him.

"Please, Daddy, tell me again."

 _Oh boy, those eyes´ll break hearts by the time he´s grown_. Vera chuckled silently as she watched the older man cave.

"Alright then. Remember how I told you that you didn´t have any hair when you where born? Well, your brother does. He has a few brown locks and brown eyes and he´s about this tall." He held his hands about 6 inches apart. Dean looked at the hands, a contemplative expression on his face.

"Do you think he´s too small to play tag with me?"

"Well, right now I´m afraid he is, but don´t worry, he´ll be running ´round the house with you before you know it."

Dean seemed satisfied with that and spent the next couple minutes flipping pages in a sports magazine, stopping here and now to show his father a particularly impressive sports car or a really cool player. Vera just put in the last touches on her report when he carefully placed the magazine back on the table and turned in his chair.

"Do you think he´ll like me?"

John Winchester seemed to be elsewhere with his thoughts because he gave his son a confused look. "Who?"

Dean shifted on his chair for a few seconds before mumbling something that was too soft for her to hear. John apparently understood him just fine because he unceremoniously picked Dean up and pulled him close.

"Dean, I´m absolutely sure your brother will like you."

Dean didn´t seem to be convinced quite that easily and whispered something into his father´s chest.

"Well, I know that because I know you, kiddo, and I know that you´ll be the best brother Sam could wish for."

John pressed a short kiss to his son´s forehead before he released him. "We okay now?"

The boy gave a small nod right when her colleague Tommy came around to the front desk and handed Vera the chart. "So, the rounds are done for today, everything looks fine." She quickly scammed over the data and nodded approvingly.

"Great, thanks. Does that mean I can let these two impatient visitors in to see Mary Winchester?" She tilted her head and Tommy nodded with a grin. "Yeah, she´s already waiting for them. Would you mind bringing them in? I still have to drop these probes down at the lab before I head home."

"Sure, no problem."

He flashed her a grateful smile and disappeared down the hallway. Vera sorted the last sheets away and stepped around the desk.

"Mr. Winchester? We can let you in to your wife now."

"Yes, finally!" Dean jumped from his father´s lap to the floor, eyes alight with excitement.

"Great, thank you." His father was a little more composed, but the joy on his face could easily rival with his son´s. Vera lead them down the long corridor, Dean bouncing ahead, apparently too impatient to wait for the adults.

Vera opened the door to room 306. "Mrs Winchester, you have two very eager visitors."

She stepped in and Dean immediately ran past her towards his mother who sat up in her bed with a brilliant smile and opened her arms.

"Mommy!"

Mary scooped up her son and he eagerly wrapped his arms around her. John followed slightly slower, stepping past Vera and placing a hand on his wife´s shoulder.

"How are you, love?"

"Great now that you guys are here."

Dean turned his attention away from his parents and towards the little crib beside his mother´s bed.

"Is that my brother?"

The boy slowly climbed down from the hospital bed and walked over to the crib. He had to stand on his toes to look inside at the little human bundle that was currently sleeping in it, unabashed wonder in his face.

"Yes, honey. That´s Sam." Mary answered, but Dean didn´t turn around to her, eyes fixed on the infant.

As if hearing his name, the baby woke up and looked up into the face of his older brother. Then slowly, very slowly, as if he was scared the baby would vanish if he moved too fast, Dean reached down towards him.

Vera waited for the baby to start screaming, because she had already come to learn that Sam Winchester wasn´t all that comfortable with people-that-were-not-his-mother touching him, but he stayed silent. When Dean´s hand was only inches from his face, the baby clumsily stretched out his arm, wrapping his little hand around his brother´s finger.

"Hello Sammy."

She could hear Dean whisper solemnly, his parents watching them both with glowing pride from a few feet away. She knew she should leave, give the family this moment in private, but she just couldn´t. Her eyes were glued to Dean, the small boy standing on his toes and holding on to his little brother as if he just found his true place in this world.

"My name is Dean. I´m your big brother." The boy said softly, completely focussed on Sam. Vera was certain a bomb could go off in the room right now and he wouldn´t even notice.

"Can you say that? Dean?"

The baby gave a soft squeal, then started giggling happily, but the older boy seemed completely satisfied with that response.

"Hihi, not bad. Don´t worry, I can teach you when you´re older." Then he became serious again. "I´ll take care of you." There was a heartfelt sincerity in his tone she previously didn´t believe a four-year-old capable of. Sam grew quiet, but a smile stayed on his little face as he looked up to his brother with an expression Vera´d never seen on a baby´s face before. If she didn´t know better, she´d say it looked like belonging and understanding and unconditional trust.

She felt like this was not something meant for her eyes and yet she felt inexplicably lucky she´d seen it. After one last glance at the brothers she gave their parents a parting smile and silently closed the door behind her. She wandered down the hallway slowly, still caught up in what she´d just seen. Because this hadn´t been the first time she´d been there to witness such a scene. No, she could think of dozens of siblings seeing each other for the first time in this hospital and not once had it been like this.

As a nurse working in the maternity ward she sometimes found herself wondering what would become of the children that were born here. And even though she couldn´t really put it into words, something told her that the Winchester boys had a great future ahead of them.

* * *

 **And there you have it. Unapologetic Wee!chesters fluff. You´re welcome:)**


	9. A hard day s night

**Hello there:)**

 **I wrote this chapter for Soncnica, who gave me the first sentence as a prompt and let me do with it what I wanted.**

 **The result is set somewhere in the early seasons and there´ll be some swearing and a little puke, so consider yourself warned.**

 **And no. They´re still not mine:)**

* * *

He hadn´t slept in a while; alcohol wasn´t as awesome of a sleeping aid as some people had made him believe, because all it did was making him dizzy, queasy and puking his guts out after his whole body said _enough is enough, buddy._

And yet here he was.

The Million Dollar Cowboy bar was the kind of place his mother, bless her, had always warned him about and he would´ve never entered it had he been able to go even one step further. As it was, Thomas´d felt so utterly exhausted that he´d just crashed at the first open place he´d passed on his way home from the stock market and so far hadn´t managed to get up. He needed to unwind, needed to relax and even though previous attempts including alcohol in large quantities have lead him nowhere but the closest toilet stall, he wasn´t quite desperate enough for more drastic measures. Staring down at his half-empty beer glass with unseeing eyes he contemplated when his life had gone so wrong.

Was it when he decided to specialize in natural resources? When he joined Muligan´s team as a junior adviser? Or when he was fired from it? Or even before that, when he decided to try his luck as a broker and move to the big city? Maybe when he was born?

He didn´t fancy himself as a guy who wallowed in self pity, but two weeks of non-stop working with only his trusty coffee machine to keep him running could do that to a guy.

This was just his rotten luck again. All his life he tried and tried and never got anywhere with it. His chosen colleges didn´t want him, his father´s company back in Ohio crashed despite his best efforts, his wife was his soon-to-be-ex-wife and now he spent all of his days staring at screens and slowly drowning in useless data while everyone around him seemed to know the way to the lifeboats. Okay, so maybe he didn´t have quite the necessary grades, knew next to nothing about how to run a business and spent more nights in his office than at home-

 _Oh God, I´m starting to sound like my grandmother!_

A shiver ran down his body at the thought and he was just about to raise his hand for something stronger to drown out the nagging voices in his head when another man unceremoniously plopped down on the bar stool beside him.

"One whiskey, neat" He ordered flatly and even though other patrons were already waiting for their drinks the bartender took one look at the guy and placed the whiskey in front of him wordlessly.

 _Smart guy,_ Thomas thought to himself after looking the newcomer up and down from the corner of his eye. Unlike him, his new neighbour looked like he felt all at home in a seedy place like this and could take on the three leather clad bikers behind them who started their third round of pool with loud threats of death in case of "cheap tricks" with ease if he wanted to. Not exactly someone he´d try to mess with.

By the time he finally got around to order his second beer the guy next to him was already at his third whiskey while continuing to give the wooden counter in front of him a death glare.

Under normal circumstances he would have never even considered talking to the other man, but he was a lightweight and the beer at this place was unusually strong and he was running on three hours of sleep for two weeks and so he slowly turned around as the guy raised his empty glass with a silent demand for a refill and asked:

"Rough night?"

He tried to sound like the cowboys in the shady saloons he used to see in his mother´s old western flicks, smooth and confident and with a slight air of indifference, but judging by the look the guy gave him he failed spectacularly.

"You got no idea."

The other growled and downed his refill with one big gulp. Even after this short sentence Thomas mentally applauded him for having such a clear pronunciation, considering his impressive alcohol intake speed.

"Well no, I guess I don´t. You could always tell me, of course."

 _Damn me and my goddamn nonexistent alcohol tolerance! One beer and I talk myself to death_.

For a moment it looked like his death might come sooner than he´d have liked, but then the guy´s eyes lost their murderous gleam.

"Well, I sure could, Dr. Phil, but chances are you wouldn´t understand anyway. Or do you got a little brother?"

The man stared at him and right through him at the same time and before Thomas could open his mouth to negate he was already talking again.

"You got a little brother who always fucking knows everything better and never listens to you and just does his own thing and then actually bitches about you not being the boss of him?"

The man was breathing heavily, his right hand tensing around his glass, the other up in the air in a gesture of helpless anger. Thomas had a feeling that he´d just been asked a rhetorical question and so he bit his lip to avoid any more nonsense spilling out and patiently waited for the other to continue.

"Told you you wouldn´t understand." The guy mumbled and dropped his hand and right now he looked like he just really needed a hug. Thomas mentally retraced that sentence, the image of him hugging this leather-jacket-wearing 5,6 feet of walking anger so hilarious to his inebriated brain that he fought to contain his giggles. His life might suck, but he wasn´t suicidal yet.

Instead he went for a more diplomatic approach. "Maybe I don´t have a brother, but I used to have a dog."

The guy raised his eyebrows, the murder quickly returning to his expression and he hurried to continue. "Not that that´s exactly the same thing or anything, I´m not saying your brother´s a dog or that I treated my animals like relatives, I mean, I´m not that kind of person and anyway-"

He took a deep breath.

"My point is, that my dog didn´t always do what I wanted because it had it´s own head and that was inconvenient at times, sure, especially the one time he ate the neighbours hamster, but all in all, it was okay."

He stopped, already regretting that he had not yet put a will together when he saw the man´s lips twitch in the slightest hint of a smile.

"I know it´s not really a fitting analogy-"

"No, it´s really not. But surprisingly enough, I see your point." Before Thomas could exhale in relief his neighbour's face darkened again.

"And I´m the last to say the kid can´t have his own opinions and act on them all he likes but not when that gets him hurt!"

He returned his eyes to the countertop, looking so dejected and miserable that Thomas had to clamp his fingers around his stool to refrain from reaching out to pat him on the shoulder because he had the sinking feeling he might loose his hand if he did.

"I hope it´s not too bad." He said, suddenly finding himself truly concerned on the behalf of his new acquaintance's sibling.

"Well, he just took a bullet for me. He´ll live" The man snorted, but it didn´t really sound like a joke. Thomas swallowed heavily and, after a moment´s hesitation, decided against asking how literal that had been meant. Maybe his life wasn´t as bad as he´d previously thought.

He looked down at his glass and discovered with detached wonder that he somehow emptied it during their conversation. One more look from his empty glass to the miserable guy beside him and his choice was made.

"What´s your name?"

His neighbour looked suspicious for about two seconds before he dropped his head in his hands and apparently decided to not give a fuck anymore.

"Dean."

"Well, Dean, my name is Thomas and I wondered how you´d feel about me inviting you to one more of those?" He made a vague gesture towards Dean´s glass and didn´t wait to see him agree before raising his hand.

"Two whiskey's please."

* * *

"You know, you´re like one o´ these bartenders in the movies."

Thomas was slowly raising his third (fourth?) glass of whiskey to his lips as Dean uttered this, pointing at him with his own half-filled one.

Thomas raised his eyebrows at that statement, but the other man didn´t seem inclined to elaborate. He was also, Thomas noted with a certain sense of satisfaction, slowly beginning to slur his words.

"How so?" He asked eventually, carefully forming the words on his tongue before speaking.

"I mean, like, the protoga-pratago- ah fuck it, the main guy walks into the bar all d´pressed ´nd shit and the bartender ask _What´s wrong_ and then the guy spills his heart over the counter and everythings all sunshine ´nd fucking unicorns again."

Unsure if Dean was complimenting or insulting him he simply took another sip and gave a noncommittal hum. The other man seemed to have warmed to the topic, though, because he watched him calculatingly over his drink. "To be like in the movies you´d need more muscles and loose the glasses nd´ the hair, but the attitude´s all there. I mean, it´s almost classic: I come´n here and whine ´bout my brother an´ you tell me ´bout your dog and, and give me alcohol and get me all ready to cry that it´s all just cause I love the idiot so much."

Thomas just stared at his new friend, his body consisting off at least 30% pure alcohol at this point, which made him completely unable to come up with the right response to what he´d just heard. Dean, however, was undeterred by his silence.

"And you know what?"

Thomas blinked eloquently, but Dean ploughed on. "You´re right. I do love him. If God´s really up there, he knows I do."

His voice was shaking a little with booze and emotion and Thomas could feel his own eyes grow teary even though he hadn´t really understood anything of his drinking buddy´s monologue. Same buddy seemed to get a grip on himself much faster than he did because while Thomas was still wiping his eyes on a napkin he was quickly back to his former cheery drunken self.

"So, what´d you name your bar?"

Ah right, they were talking about how he´d be a good bartender. How Dean reached that conclusion was still beyond him, but as someone who hadn´t been good at anything he´d done so far he was willing to just roll with it.

"Uhhm, how ´bout "The Drunken Accountant?" The name just came out of nowhere, tumbling out his mouth before he could stop it but Dean laughed, clapping his hands together in glee and Thomas couldn´t help but joining.

"Alright, I´ll drink to that. Whaddaya say ´bout doing shots?"

* * *

 _Damn, something smells._

That was his first thought as he slowly crept back towards consciousness. And the smell was so overpowering that it blocked out all other sensations at first. But even though it was revolting, he couldn´t really convince his body to move away from it. He felt, in fact, strangely disconnected from the thing as a whole, as if it didn´t really belong to him.

And so he just stayed, floating in the strangely comfortable feeling of detachment until his other senses slowly came back online. Gradually, he grew aware of the sounds of people and cars passing by in some distance, of the cold air seeping into his bones and the rough uneven surface he was leaning on. And the strange weight at his side, as though someone was leaning heavily on his shoulde-

"Oh my God, what the fuck happened?"

At the sound of a strange voice just two inches away from his ear his body finally managed to produce the necessary amount of adrenaline to open his eyes and what he saw confused him so thoroughly that he honestly doubted his sanity.

He was sitting in a back alley, leaning against a brick wall next to an overflowing dumpster and he was chained to a guy. With handcuffs that shimmered in the early morning sun in a way that was almost beautiful had they not been attached to his wrists.

"Honestly, What The Hell!?" The guy said again, a little louder this time as he stared from his own cuffed hands to Thomas and back and that made him notice two things.

One, the slight increase in volume set of a jackhammer in his brain and two, the guy wasn´t really a stranger.

"Dean?"

The man stopped jerking at the cuffs to stare at him. "Yeah?"

"Oh good, it´s really you, for a moment I wasn´t sure-" He started, but apparently opening his mouth had been a bad idea because in the middle of the sentence he was interrupted by what felt like every drop of alcohol he´d ever consumed evacuating his stomach at the same time.

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

The pain in his head grew worse with every heave and he could hardly hear Dean curse over the blood rushing in his ears.

 _I´ll never drink again, I swear it on Granny´s grave, never ever again_!

When the onslaught finally ended, he found himself hunched over on his knees with his right hand up in the air next to his ear, because Dean´d apparently overcame his initial annoyance and held him firmly by the shoulders to keep him from face-planting into the puddle, which was really nice of him, actually, had it not been for the handcuffs.

As it was, the loss of his right hand to prop himself up resulted in him simply collapsing sideways into Dean. The man gave a strained huff at the collision but quickly stabilized both of them with his other hand on the wall. And while lying there with their cuffed wrists now buried between them was a little uncomfortable, it was still way better than moving and so Thomas just stayed there for a while, catching his breath and lazily following the trails of puke running towards the gully with his eyes.

 _At least the smell of the dumpster blocks out everything else._

"Okay, you good now?" Dean eventually asked and Thomas nodded, carefully not to upset the tenuous peace in his stomach.

"About damn time." The other man´s hands returned to his shoulders and he helped him sit up with a gentleness that belied the harshness in his words. Now leaning against the brick wall again, they both stayed silent for a while, breathing in the smelly winter air and, at least in Thomas case, not daring to ask the question he feared the answer to.

"But seriously, what happened?" Even though Dean seemed a lot less affected by the consequences of last nights events he sounded just as bone-tired as Thomas felt. And just as clueless.

"I kinda hoped you could tell me," he mumbled, somewhere between feeling sheepish and resigned, "Because I´ve got absolutely no idea."

Dean made a noncommittal sound and then, apparently having forgotten about the handcuffs for the moment, clapped his hands together in determination.

"Ouch!"

"Oh, sorry." He let his hand drop back but his face had lost all signs of exhaustion as he regarded Thomas seriously.

"Okay, both of us don´t know what happened, but we can figure it out. Empty your pockets."

 _At least one of us knows what he´s doing_ Thomas thought wryly as he complied, mentally facepalming himself for not thinking of that himself.

A half-empty pack of chewing gum, his house keys, his wallet ( _thank God!_ ), a few coins-

"A-ha!" Dean triumphantly pulled a black phone from his pocket and immediately started fumbling with the screen.

"Oh come on, you damn piece of shit, don´t leave me hanging, just start up already, fuck it!"

Unfortunately, no amount of colourful swear words could prompt Dean´s phone to come to life and so it ended up being tossed into a corner.

"Sam´s gonna kill me." He mumbled dejectedly and Thomas apparently still had enough alcohol in his system to answer: "But that means he´d have to find us first, which is probably hard to do with a bullet wound "

The other man simply graced the reply with a glare that promised the kind of death which would make being struck by lightning look like a mercy and he quickly snapped his mouth shut.

Dean went back to furiously searching through his pockets, all kinds of stuff he deemed unimportant joining his broken phone in the corner and, for a lack of anything more productive to do, Thomas did the same, albeit with a little less enthusiasm and strictly avoiding any fast movements to keep his brain from exploding.

"A-ha!" This time the reason for Dean´s happy outburst was a pink hair pin with a shimmering pearl. Thomas stared at him in confusion, but the other man immediately started to get down on the handcuffs with it.

"Hey, I don´t mean to destroy your illusions or anything, but that only ever works on TV-"

The handcuffs clattered to the ground and Dean grinned at him smugly, one eyebrow drawn up.

"Okay, genius, where the hell did you learn that?!"

Dean´s grin widened. "Now, wouldn´t you like to know, greenhorn?" He answered with the best John Wayne imitation Thomas´s ever heard and he couldn´t help but grin back.

"Come on, we have a mystery to solve." Dean clapped him on the shoulder and rose from the ground, trying to brush the dirt from his rumpled clothes. He followed a little more slowly, using the wall for support and clinging to it for the long moments it took for the world to right itself again. As his sight cleared, he could see that his companion was already focussed on something else, carefully examining the little hair pin in his palm.

"I assume this isn´t yours?" Dean tossed over his shoulder, eyes returning to the pin as soon as he saw him shake his head.

"Then how did it end up in my pocket?"

While keeping one hand on the wall just in case, Thomas stepped closer and together they stared down at the little piece of pink plastic.

It definitely wasn´t his, obviously, but somehow there was still something familiar about it. He closed his eyes, shutting out the glaring early morning light and tried to go back in his mind.

 _What happened? Come on, think!_

Okay, he knew they were in that bar and they were talking and drinking and then…

 _Right, the bikers!_

Apparently his mother had a valid point of warning him to stay away from establishments like the Million Dollar Cowboy bar, because he suddenly recalled ordering another round of Heaven knew what when one of the well muscled and less well behaved men who´d played pool at the table behind them unceremoniously crashed onto their table. The guy had obviously been pushed by one of his fellow players, but it turned out he wasn´t the type of man who bothered himself with questions of guilt and innocence. Instead, he opened his eyes, growled deep in his throat in a way Thomas´d never heard a human growl and took a swing at Dean.

What had happened afterwards remained a bit of a blur, but there were lots of people shouting and fists hitting flesh and wood breaking and somehow he must have made it out alive because the next clear thing he recalled was an obviously overtaxed police officer jotting down his name and swiftly cuffing him to Dean until reinforcements with additional handcuffs could arrive.

A quick look up at Dean´s face now revealed that he definitely didn´t get away from the fight as unscathed as he did, small cuts and bruises decorating his cheeks that he´d somehow overlooked after first waking up and while he felt slightly guilty for being completely unmarked, the scars did at least prove his memory was correct up until that point.

 _Right, so, we were arrested. And then?_

He could remember sitting on the floor and looking at the outnumbered police officers, the remarkable persistent bikers, the raging owner and the other patrons who were stuck somewhere between panic and confusion and laughing like he never had in his life.

He´d been drunk and arrested and life´d been great. _Oh how the mighty fall_ …

Eventually Dean must have had enough of his hysterical giggling because they somehow, and this was where his memory got hazy again, ended up in the alley behind the bar, stumbling away.

He remembered them clinging to each other, trying to walk straight and look as sober as possible until he´d spotted another neon bar sign a few streets down and slurred something about "celebrating the great escape" and that must have been where they met-

"Of course, the twins!"

The sound of Dean slapping his hand against his forehead yanked him back to the present. He´d obviously arrived at the same conclusion as him, excitedly waving the hairpin around.

"You remember, one of them had this weird fancy looking hairstyle and thousands of these on her head!"

"Now that you say it I don´t know how I could´ve ever forgotten about that."

"True, but apart from that, damn! I do wonder if we didn´t miss out there." Dean mused, his smile taking on a slightly lewd edge.

"You´re kidding right? They took us for a couple that tried and failed a first time bondage thing and wanted to, I quote: Show us the ropes, if you know what I´m saying."

Thomas shuddered and Dean quickly sobered up, shaking his head like a wet dog.

"Yeah, if you put it like that, it´s probably better this way."

He took one last look at the hairpin before throwing it in the dumpster. "Okay, so please correct me if I´m wrong, but I remember following the charming ladies up to their room at this fancy looking place and when they left us alone to _quickly gather some supplies_ we used our chance and bolted, right?"

Thomas nodded, the details slowly coming back to him as Dean spoke.

"Yeah, I remember that. We went down to the lobby and-", he winced at the memory, "-straight through to the bar where they took one good look at us and kicked us back out."

"Yes, those dudes really needed to loosen up. That was just plain rude." Dean shook his head in mock indignation before getting back on track:"Okay, so they kicked us out, but how did we end up here?"

 _Valid question_. They both looked around the alley, searching for anything that might give their reason for entering it away and came up empty.

"Probably´d be helpful if we even knew where _here_ is, don´t you think?"

Thomas let go of the wall and, as he was sure his feet would carry him, slowly made his way down towards the big street where all the average city noise originated from. He stepped out of the alley and found himself in the middle of Downtown New York, business men and women roaming the sidewalks, tourists dragging their kids around, one yellow cab following the next.

"Okay, smartass, this any more familiar to you?"

Dean stepped next to him, taking in their surroundings with the same surprise Thomas felt. That was the moment a cop car came speeding by, blue flashlight reflecting in glass windows and Thomas remembered.

"We were hiding!"

Dean stared at him in confusion and he couldn´t help but feel childishly proud of being one step ahead of him at least this one time.

"We were kicked out of the hotel bar and then we walked down this street and saw several police cars driving past. We were so convinced that they had noticed our flight from the bar where we´d been arrested that we ran away and hid behind the dumpster in the alley. And then I guess we fell asleep there in all our criminal glory."

"Oh man, I would love to call you out on making that bullshit up, but I´m afraid I kinda remember." Dean hid his face in his hands. "If Sam ever finds out about this I´ll never live it down."

Thomas was still torn between comforting his companion and laughing at the absolute misery in his expression when he heard someone shouting.

"Dean!"

Dean´s head whipped around, his face going from confused to mortified to worried to furious. Thomas followed his line of sight and spotted a really tall guy running towards them.

"What the hell are you doing out of bed!?" Dean didn´t bother to wait until the mysterious figure had reached them before shouting back with a fury that made Thomas feel instantly sorry for the approaching man. Said man, however, didn´t seem all that impressed. Up close he looked even taller and the shirt he wore couldn´t completely cover the bandages on his shoulder.

"What does it look like?! Searching for my idiot brother who manages to get himself lost as soon as I don´t pay attention for five minutes!"

"And risk popping all you stitches?! What where you thinking!? Also, I have everything completely under control here!"

 _Okay, so this is Dean´s brother Sam._

Thomas had subconsciously taken a few steps back as soon as the brothers starting yelling at each other, because he instinctively knew this was nothing he wanted to get caught up in.

"I was just worried about you, okay!"

"Yeah well, welcome to the club, take a number and wait your turn, bitch!"

"I´m laughing on the inside, jerk."

The volume of their conversation decreased with each remark until all the anger had bleed out of their words.

"How did you even find me?" Dean eventually asked, sounding involuntarily impressed.

"Tracked your phone. Last signal came from the lobby of the Colloseum Hotel so I asked there and they told me a wild tale of two deranged handcuffed figures hassling them for alcohol-"

"That is a completely inaccurate description-"

"Anyway, I figured you somehow broke your phone and so I started looking around the hotel until I saw you standing here with…?" At this, Sam turned towards Thomas, eyebrows raised slightly.

"Uhm, I´m Thomas, I´m-"

"He´s been a valuable part of this unforgettable adventure that will go down in the history of the New York nightlife."

Sam shook his head in exasperation but the smile he gave Thomas was genuine. "Well then, thank you for making sure he came out of this alive. And, sincere apologies for his beha-"

Dean elbowed his brother in his healthy shoulder. "Don´t listen to him. But seriously, as far as random one night drinking buddies go, you rocked, man."

He offered his hand and, for some reason, Thomas felt like this was one of the best compliments he´d ever gotten.

"You too, I guess." He gave Dean´s hand a firm shake and couldn´t help but feel like he would miss the guy.

"And, just so you know, I wasn´t kidding about the bartender thing." Dean threw him a last grin before he turned around and guided his brother to the nearest cab stand.

"No way you gonna walk back and destroy even more of my handiwork, dude. Uhm, you do have money with you, right?"

Thomas just stood there and watched them snap at each other with poorly hidden fondness until the cab door closed and they disappeared into the New York early morning rush.

Then he turned around and started to walk back to the Stock market. He had a job to resign and boxes to pack, after all.

 _The Drunken Accountant. Yeah, I like the sound of that._

* * *

 **Let me know what you think:) _  
_**


	10. Eternal resting places

**Hey guys:)**

 **I know it´s been quite a while, but instead of boring you with my excuses, I´ll make up for it by getting to the chapter really quickly:)**

 **You guys are awesome for reading and reviewing, Soncnica is awesome for making this readable and the Winchester´s are awesome, even though they still don´t belong to me.**

 **The two scenes you may recognize are taken from the episodes 2x04, "Children shouldn´t play with dead things" and 11x23, "Alpha and Omega".**

 **Also, fair warning: this story takes place on a graveyard, which is as much of a warning as I can give you if I don´t want to take the point of the chapter away, but please notice that if the topic of death is triggering for you, you might want to skip this one.**

* * *

Graham´s there, on the day of the funeral.

It´s his second week on the job, so this is the first he´s ever seen from this perspective, and yet he can already tell that there´s something strange about this one. Some guy named Roger Campbell took care of the formalities. He´s the only one who comes, too, no ceremony, nothing.

Also, no casket.

He doesn´t ask. He´s just the gardener here, after all.

Later, after he closes the gates of the graveyard for the day, he finds himself drawn over to the new headstone, polished marble, a single flower placed carefully on fresh black earth.

 **Mary Winchester**

 **1954-1983**.

 _Only 29_.

He wonders, briefly, what kind of woman she was, whether she had family, what happened to her that her life ended in an empty grave. Then he straightens himself and turns towards the parking lot and forgets about her.

* * *

Times passes.

Life goes on and so does death.

Spring fades into summer fades into autumn, then snow covers the graveyard before the circle repeats itself. He tends to the flowers and keeps the paths free of ice and the walls free of graffiti. And comes to learn that a graveyard is anything but a dead place.

When he took this job, a young businessman who pokered high and lost higher, all he wanted was to hide. Lock himself away and forget about the world and at first, it seemed like he succeeded.

But then he got to know the people.

Greenville is a small community and there´s hardly a person in town that doesn´t have a loved one buried here. Annabelle Johnson comes every Sunday, lighting a few candles and saying her prayers for Mr. Johnson, never leaving without taking a few minutes to chat with him. Mr. and Mrs. Makintosh come about once a month, sometimes alone, sometimes together. They´re always carrying a little toy to place on their son´s grave. Lilly Millerton brings her violin whenever she comes to visit her fiancée, filling the graveyard with ethereal music.

He learns their faces and they learn his, and maybe it´s the place itself, the fact that they´ll all end up here eventually, that makes it so easy to feel connected. Sometimes they nod at each other, sometimes there´s a little chat, he helps with a flower arrangement here or offers words of support there.

He stands by for every burial.

It takes him a while to notice that no one ever comes to visit Mary Winchester`s grave, not even the man who organized her burial. Of course she´s not the only one who doesn´t have relatives living nearby, but even if they can´t come, they usually ask him to make sure everything stays in order. Mary, it seems, has nobody. And yes, he knows it´s sentimental, bordering on ridiculous even, but every now and then, he places a little candle next to her headstone before he leaves. Just because.

Of course it´s not always easy. Sometimes, late at night, he sits in his living room and thinks about how many of the people whose headstones he walks by every day were too young, how they left unfixable holes in the lives of those who come to visit. But he never allows himself to dwell on it for long.

* * *

It´s the day after Mrs. Johnson joined her husband in the afterlife he knows she believed in when Graham first sees him. Initially, he pays him no mind, simply continuing to pick up the fallen leaves from the old oak next to the entrance gate. The man´s not from around here, but that in itself isn´t so unusual. That is, until he sees where he stops: At Mary Winchester´s grave.

In the seven years since she´s been buried here no one ever came and even though it´s not his business and he knows it, he can´t help but wonder.

 _Who and why now, after all this time?_

The stranger just stands in front of her grave, staring at the words scripted in the headstone for the longest time. Graham really tries not to stare, but whenever his work takes him near the grave curiosity beats will power and he quickly glances over.

The man stands straight, shoulders stiff, hands clenched into fists by his sides. No need to see the dog tags around his neck to know he used to be military. And as much as he wants to know, one look at the strangers face quickly convinces him he´s better off leaving him alone. He makes a sharp turn, away form the grave and the man, trying to shake himself out of the confusion his appearance had caused.

 _Might as well get a head start on cutting that hedge_.

When he comes back from the shed, tools in hand and mind set on getting back to his work, he can´t help but notice that the man has taken a small step forward. His palm´s hovering hesitantly in the air over the headstone, as if he doesn´t dare touch it. As if that would shatter the stone or his hand or something else altogether.

Graham quickly turns his attention towards the hedge, suddenly overcome by the feeling of intruding on something not meant for his eyes. He´s halfway finished through with cutting when the early evening silence is broken by a low keening sound, brimming with a grief that nearly robs it of all humanity.

He doesn´t turn around, but he can see the man in his mind´s eye: Maybe he has touched the headstone, maybe he´s still standing straight maybe he´s sunken on his knees. Maybe his eyes are open, maybe they´re closed; in the end, it doesn´t make a difference. Not to the empty grave he´s standing in front of. And even though Graham´s heard it many times before, the crying, the wailing, the pleading and cursing and breaking, he´s never ever heard it quite like this.

By the time he does turn around, the man is gone.

* * *

He sees the man again, after that.

He comes in irregular intervals and mostly in the evenings. Never speaks to anybody, eyes faraway, dark jacket blending in with the fading daylight, the closest thing Graham´s ever seen to a ghost.

At first he considers asking him _who, from where, why,_ but in the end, he never does. He finds that he actually likes the mystery. And takes comfort in the fact that Mary wasn´t all alone in her life, after all. When he watches the stranger come and leave and come and leave, his mind makes him her long lost brother or loving husband, an English teacher or an archaeologist or maybe a soldier, still.

He used to consider ignorance an inexcusable character flaw, but now, he´s not so sure anymore. Because these days, it feels more like a gift.

* * *

In all his nearly thirty years at the job, he´s never seen anything quite like this. The sun´s barely over the horizon and he´s just about finished with his morning round when he comes to a violent stop before Angela Mason´s grave.

The service´d been held yesterday, nearly the entire town coming to mourn to young college student who got killed in a car accident and no matter how many years he´s done this now, burying a kid never got any easier.

But that is still no explanation for what he´s seeing: All the flowers friends and family placed on the temporary grave the day before has wilted to brown, lifeless scrub. The tree next to the grave looks like it fouled down to the roots overnight and the grass around the wooden cross has turned grey in a perfect circle.

He scratches his head, closes his eyes, opens them again, stares, but not for long, because something about the sight makes him uneasy in a way he has not felt since he believed in monsters under the bed. He tears his eyes away and walks swiftly towards the office, trying to ignore the growing sense of dread that makes the hair on his arms stand on edge.

 _Something´s not right about this. Not at all_.

The thought comes unbidden and nearly makes him laugh out loud at how silly he´s being.

 _Getting superstitious in our old age, are we?_

He shakes his head, sits down at the desk and boots up the computer _._

 _I´m sure there´s a reasonable explanation for all of this._

Three hours of fruitless research in about every botanical resource he can think of and he´s slowly going insane. No insects, no pesticides, no disease, there is absolutely nothing that could explain the sudden dying of the plants.

"Yes Mrs. Rogers, I´ve seen the tree, I´m already on it!" He snaps, harsher than intended, at the woman who enters the office without bothering to knock. Mrs. Rogers, who carries an overweight, bored looking pug on her arm, jerks back at his sudden outburst and he immediately feels bad.

"I´m sorry, I meant to say: thanks for letting me know. It´s just- it´s been a busy morning, is all."

She raises her right eyebrow in this way that always reminds him of his old primary school teacher, a mixture between superiority and graciousness that is just this side of patronizing and sets the dog down with a long-suffering sigh.

"Of course. Be it as it may, I do hope you find a solution for this problem. Oh and there are some _people_ out there I´ve never seen before and they´re behaving somewhat suspicious if you ask me." With that, she whirls around and leaves the office.

Now it´s his turn to sigh, and he takes a moment to bury his face in his hands. Mrs. Rogers is not exactly known for her deductive skills, reporting suspicious behaviour almost once a month when she gets bored of playing bridge and spoiling her dog and she feels that the town´s gossip could do with some refreshing. From nightly teenager gatherings over grave desecration to supernatural creatures there is literally nothing she has not claimed to have seen on the graveyard and so far, there´s always been a completely reasonable explanation for all of her accusations. After one last look at the pile of useless books he´d gone through over the course of morning he heaves himself out of the chair.

 _Might as well have a look at these mysterious people_.

It´s around noon and the graveyard nearly abandoned when he steps out the door. That makes spotting the two Mrs. Rogers referred to easier and even though he resents to admit it even to himself, he has to agree with her that there is something slightly _off_ about them. They are two guys, one wandering aimlessly around and looking at the headstones as if he´d rather be anywhere but here and the other kneeling in front of Mary Winchester´s grave, his head bowed in silent prayer.

 _Mmh. Well, that´s curious._

It´s been over half a year since her regular visitor had last come and he is absolutely certain he´s never seen these two before. Even though they are standing apart, it´s obvious they belong together, the walking man always throwing furtive glances at the kneeling one when he thinks the other won´t see. And while the casual observer might find that they don´t look much alike, Graham prides himself in being quite skilled when it comes to memorizing faces and he´d bet good money they´re related.

More out of unwillingness to go back to his work than actual suspicion he decides to keep an eye on them for a while. He picks up a watering can and goes back to tending the flowers where he got interrupted earlier, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. Out of the corner of his eye he can see that the kneeling man starts digging a small hole in the earth over Mary´s grave with his hand. When he is done, he lifts up a small metallic chain and, after hesitating shortly, drops it into the hole.

 _The dog tags_.

Graham only sees them for a split second and yet, with these two guys at Mary´s grave and the look on both of their faces, he´s sure. They know the man who used to come here. That man is dead. They know the woman who does not lie under the earth in that grave meant something to him. Maybe they knew her too, even though they might be a little too young for that, hard to tell from a distance. Whatever the case is, right now there´s a lump in his throat that he can´t swallow and he doesn´t even know these people.

He makes an effort not to look anymore after that, just goes about his business and tries to ignore the persistent ache in his chest until he eventually ends up at Angela Mason´s resting place, hoping the riddle it poses can distract him.

"Hey, uhm, you got any idea what´s going on here?"

He startles violently and finds himself face to face with one of the strangers, who quickly raises his hands in apology.

"Whoa, sorry, didn´t mean to scare you."

"Oh no, it´s fine, don´t worry about it." He puts the watering can down, tries not to show how much this whole day´s rattled him.

The man who stands in front of him is young, just like he´s assumed. Stance and features nonchalant, but his voice doesn´t quite match the rest, the words a little too intense for casual interest.

"As a matter of fact, no, I don´t know." Graham nods towards the dying tree.

"The woman died three days ago, a tragic car accident and as I came here this morning, the place looked like this." He briefly wonders if it is wise to tell the stranger all that, but on the other hand, what harm can it do?

"Mmh, I see." The other mumbles, eyes focussing on the rotting plants as if he´s searching for something. "You using any weird pesticides here, if you don´t mind me asking?"

He cocks his head, trying to tame his curiosity. "No, no pesticides at all."

The stranger nods slowly, pulls his lower lip between his teeth. "Have you noticed anything strange around here? Maybe weird smells or…cold spots?"

He looks at Graham as if he knows exactly what his questions sounds like and is still completely serious about them.

"No, I haven´t. Now, why would you ask that?"

The man grins, looking slightly sheepish. "Well, I guess it sounds pretty strange but my brother-", he jerks his chin towards the other man who´s currently standing up from his kneeling position and throwing a questioning look in their direction, "-and I, we´re researching local urban legends, lore, the works, to put a book together."

 _Brother it is, then. I see_.

Graham holds the man´s gaze, eyebrows just high enough that the challenge is noticed and acknowledged, but the other doesn´t budge.

 _Well, doesn´t mean that I believe you, but that´s one fine poker face you got there, kid._

Out loud he says: "Ah, alright. Well, in that case I´m sorry to disappoint you, but there´s nothing noteworthy going down here."

The guy shrugs dismissively, but he´s no fool either, clearly understanding the doubt in the subtext and appreciating not being called out on it.

"No worries. Anyway, thank you for your help." He nods respectfully, then turns back towards his brother. Graham watches them as they walk away, brows drawn, hands gesticulating wildly. After one last look at the rotten plants, he heads back towards his office, back to his own research. But, for some reasons, the sense of dread he felt this morning is gone.

* * *

When he comes back the next day, he sees it immediately. Someone dug up Angela Mason´s grave.

Whoever did it clearly made an effort to cover it up, but he knows every inch of this property by heart. There´s no doubt about who did it either: the two men from yesterday. He already suspected the story about the book to be lie and their appearance had simply been too coincidental to actually be a coincidence. He should call the police.

He would, normally, no hesitation, but there is also the fact that the grass around the grave is green again. All of it.

Slowly, he bends down, sinks his fingers into the blades. Alive and healthy, like nothing ever happened. The tree, too.

 _If I didn´t know better, I´d say there´s magic at work here_.

He shakes his head slowly, smiles to himself. _Well I guess I truly don´t know better._

All he knows is that, whatever they did here; it worked. And while he´s still curious, he´s also old enough to know that, sometimes, it´s better to just accept the not-knowing.

He straightens up, eyes wandering over the once-again-green vegetation and finally landing on Mary´s headstone.

 _It`s truly a shame that I never got to meet you alive. Judging by your acquaintances, I´ve got a feeling you´d have been a most interesting person._

* * *

The graveyard is filled with a kind of frantic activity that the place has never seen before. People hurry around with jittery steps, lighting candles and mumbling desperate prayers as if they fear that today might be the last day they´ll get to say the words. And it might be, for all he knows.

He´s seen the reports, heard the news and the truth is, it´s not looking good.

The sun´s dying.

And all the science experts and political spokesmen examine and speculate and try to make it look like they´re not completely at a loss, but it´s not a very strong façade. There´s something in the air, in the ground, something that goes deep through his bones and straight to his core that tells him that this is it. The end.

And even though this is certainly not the way he´d imagined it to happen, he feels surprisingly calm.

While most people are at least somewhat aware that death is the only truly unavoidable thing in life, hardly anyone experiences it as closely as him and maybe that´s why he can look at the others run around in mindless hectic and just watch as the light slowly grows dimmer. He feels sympathy for them, sure, feels like they would have all deserved a more merciful ending, but it is how it is. And even though he´s never been particularly faithful, all the years spend tending to final resting places made him hopeful that there might be _something,_ after all, and he tells himself that´s all the hope he needs.

At first, he doesn´t notice them in the steady stream of people coming and leaving and then he doesn´t immediately recognize them, because it´s been years. But when they stop where they stopped before, recognition hits him like a punch in the gut. Two brothers stand in front of Mary Winchester´s headstone, heads bowed like they´ve come to pay their last respects.

Seeing them again stirs something in his heart, tugs at the resigned acceptance he felt until now, because-

Because he never forgot how green grass grew over what´d previously been dead earth and maybe there is something about them, maybe they can save them-

The rational part of his mind recognizes it for the foolish hope of a dying man that it is and yet he can´t tear his eyes away from them.

They´re not alone, this time. Three men and one woman stand a little behind, patiently waiting. They are an odd group, looking like they were randomly thrown together by an uncaring hand, united only through the solemn expression on all of their faces.

Eventually, the slightly shorter brother, the one he talked to all these years ago, turns around to the waiting group. He starts speaking with arms open wide, like he´s holding a rally, or speaking to an army, calling to the weapons. His brother remains at the grave a little longer, slowly raising his fingertips to his mouth, then gently bringing them down at the headstone.

There are hugs and whispered words, spoken with the faces of men who´d come to accept they will be the last they´ll ever share and the hope he´d initially felt at their arrival slowly drains away.

 _This is not a rescue mission. This looks like a funeral_.

He blinks the sudden wetness from his eyes and when his sight clears, one of the brothers is gone. Vanished.

Normally, Graham would be certain that this must be some trick, some clever illusion, but today it´s hardly the strangest thing that happened. The five who remain stare at the place where their companion just stood like they, too, have trouble believing he´s not there anymore. Then the woman and two of the men turn around and walk towards the entrance with heavy steps, as if they know there´s no point in hurrying anymore. The brother who is left behind doesn´t move, resisting the man who wears a trench coat like armour as he tries to tug him along.

But eventually, he gives up.

When they walk past him towards the gate, Graham´s taken aback by the look on the tall man´s face, the emptiness in his eyes. Because all he can see is a dead man walking.

He can´t stand to watch for long, and only as he looks after their retreating forms he truly begins to believe that the world is doomed. He closes his eyes against the tears that threaten to fall again and fails. When he opens them again, blurry with salty water, his gaze wanders back towards the sky, watching the weaning daylight. And he waits.

* * *

People are screaming, some are crying, some are lifting their hands towards the sky when the sun returns, bright and warm and promising life.

He stands among them in stunned silence, unable to grasp what he´s seeing, joy filling every cell of his body with blinding intensity.

But somehow, even the burning rays of sunlight can´t completely erase the memory of the two brothers, one looking ready to die, one looking like he´s already dead and while he doesn´t know, can´t even begin to understand what happened and what kind of role they´ve played in all of it, he finds himself uttering silent words of _Thank you_.

* * *

It´s raining, heavy drops drenching everyone who dares to venture outside in seconds, but he forgot the keys for the tool shed in the office and getting wet never really bothered him much. He opens the front gates and hurries towards the office door, sparing the rest of the graveyard only a passing look.

He´d have missed her had it not been for her white coat.

A woman, short blond hair curling over the collar, staring at Mary Winchester´s headstone as if she doesn´t even feel the rain. It´s late and the graveyard is closed, so she shouldn´t be here. She also shouldn´t get wet.

He makes a quick detour in the office, grabs the forgotten keys and the umbrella he always stores in a side cabinet and walks towards her.

"Ma´am?"

She doesn´t turn around, doesn´t even move.

"Ma´am, the graveyard is closed, I have to ask you to leave-"

He´s only a few feet away now, close enough to see her shoulders shaking even through the downpour. He doesn´t like to do this, doesn´t want to interrupt her in her obvious grieving, not one to hold a grudge against her trespassing.

 _Maybe she´ll want to wait in the office until the rain stops_.

"I´m sorry for your lo-"

She whirls around like a cornered lion, eyes two deadly slits over tear-stained cheeks.

"What do you know about my loss?!" She hisses, then brushes past him, knocking their shoulders together powerfully enough to make him stumble to the side. When he gets his bearings back, she´s already through the gate, a blurred white shape growing smaller in the distance.

* * *

"And this is were you save the files for the city council, they will ask you to report numbers once a year-"

He squints, points at the screen and Sirius Davidson leans over his shoulder, nodding his understanding. The young man is the kind of person who can easily vanish in a room full of people, shy and silent but a quick learner with a true hand for plants. When Graham turns 75 next week, Sirius will take over the business and he´s no doubts the boy will do a fine job.

When today´s lesson is over, he watches the door close behind his will-be-successor and leans back in his chair, eyes tired after staring at the screen for two hours. _God knows I´ll miss this place_.

He lets his thoughts wander for a moment, thinking back to his first years on the job, how he came to feel like he belonged here. Back to the people he´d met over the years, many who have already found their place among the headstones and yet, he´ll always remember them fondly. To his first funeral and the slowly weathering gravestone of Mary Winchester.

That´s the moment the door opens again and a man steps in. His face is drawn and weary and while he doesn´t look older than forty, his shoulders are sagging like they carried the weight of more than one lifetime. He´s wearing a trench coat.

"I need a grave."

They clear the formalities quickly, the man so innocently clueless about most of them that it would have been comical if not for the grief written in every line of his body. Graham has recognized him immediately and he knows he could ask him. Knows that this is most likely his last chance to understand everything that happened back then, but he doesn´t. Because, somehow, it doesn´t feel that important to know anymore.

The only thing the man is really specific about is where the grave should be situated. Next to Mary Winchester. And while that is a little difficult to arrange, Graham doesn´t give up until it´s done.

He´s there, on the day of the funeral. This time, he stands next to the only attendant as they shovel soil over an empty grave in front of a simple white stone.

 **Sam and Dean Winchester**

 **1983-2023, 1979-2023**

They stand shoulder to shoulder in silence, watching the candles reflect on the polished surface of the stone until the sun goes down.

* * *

 **That´s it guys:)**

 **Obviously, the death dates of our favourite brothers are pure speculation on my part and I do sincerely hope they´ll outlive them by far. On another note, I will preliminary call this chapter the end of the shot collection, because I currently have a lot going on and don´t want to keep you hanging for eternities with the promise of another chapter. That doesn´t mean i won´t come back to this when the muse strikes again, but until then, thank you all for coming on this journey with me and never forget to Alway keep fighting!**


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